Something a Little More Plain &c (Abandoned Draft)
by Monophylos
Summary: Four months after leaving the Underground Dr. Alphys has been striving to get her new lab up and running with the help of her partner Undyne, but one explosion too many prompts her to hire an assistant from the human population. Meanwhile, the move to the Surface has exacerbated tensions within the two monsters' young relationship. Can Alphys and Undyne weather the changes?
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

 **Pyrophoria**

"Got the new batch of donations, Alphy."

The gruff owner of the voice was already halfway across the laboratory, a massive cardboard box hoisted high on each shoulder, by the time the lab door banged shut behind her.

Dr. Alphys looked up from typing to watch the muscular figure approach; her nervous gaze flitted back and forth between the figure's lithe midsection and the boxes on their precarious perches. "C-careful with those, Undyne. There's probably glass."

"I know, I know! Give me _some_ credit, will ya?" Arriving at the bench where the diminutive scientist was seated at her computer, Undyne in one swift and careful movement deposited the boxes on the ground with scarcely a clink of glass to be heard from inside them, then in another movement equally swift reached out to scoop up the scientist in her powerful arms. Alphys giggled helplessly, flushing bright red as her lover kissed her snout. Even after four months together, the passion that Undyne invested in her romantic gestures still took Alphys's breath away.

"H-hi," she eventually managed to get out between kisses.

"Mmmm. Whatcha working on?"

"E-mails. I'm trying to coordinate with the Queen in reaching out to human scientists who m-might be willing to help us out with supplies and equipment. We need more of...well...everything." Alphys sighed, shoulders sagging. Lately she'd been spending almost as much time leafing wistfully through scientific catalogues as she did reading manga. Sometimes Alphys missed her old laboratory, where everything was familiar and she had all the equipment she needed. After the breaching of the Barrier, Queen Toriel had been kind enough to permit her ex-Royal Scientist to return to the Underground to direct the salvaging of any useful supplies from the old lab. Alphys had taken her time on that last visit, going through the rooms that had once been home to her and running her paws over the familiar panels of the instruments that, on the Surface, would no longer be of any use.

No, not all her old instruments. The DT Extraction Machine had been demolished, at her request, before Alphys would consent to go back Underground.

Undyne, noticing her girlfriend's dejection, wrapped her webbed hands over Alphys's shoulders, massaging with her fingers. Alphys squirmed and squeaked in her chair. "Oh, Undyne…" she couldn't help but sigh.

"I knew that would make you feel better," said Undyne, resting her chin on Alphys's head. "So? Any more help on the way?"

"Maybe. There's a biochemist at Eglinton I've started talking with. He actually seems thrilled that he can talk to a real m-monster scientist!"

"A m-monster _nerd_ you mean," said Undyne with an enormous, tooth-filled grin. "Bet the humans are surprised we even _have_ scientists. _Or_ nerds." She punctuated her last remark with a kiss to Alphys's cheek.

"Oh yeah," said the scientist. "But it's a way to get a conversation going. With s-some of them anyway. They're interested to find out just how much we've been able to piece together of h-human science just from what they threw away."

"Mmmm," Undyne said, half her mind on Alphys's words and the other half on her body. "Whatcha wanna work on now? Maybe we could, uh, take a break…"

"Undyne! Every h-half an hour you want to...well…" Alphys turned redder before she could get her last words out. "T-take a 'b-b-break'".

"Fuhuhu. Can you blame me?"

"N-no." Alphys swivelled her chair round to face Undyne, wrapping her arms tightly around her lover's body and gazing up at her face. "Tell you what, Undyne. Let's sort through the stuff you b-brought in and when we've got it all inventoried and put away...then we c-can...you kn-know…"

"'Take a break'," finished Undyne. "Oh, Alphy, you're still such a bashful, blushing dork and I _love_ you for it." Reluctantly she disengaged herself from their embrace and went over to the boxes. "Just tell me what I gotta do!"

"R-remember to put a lab coat on first! And your face shield! I don't want you losing your _other_ eye," Alphys added, shivering a little in fear at the prospect as she put on her safety glasses.

"Ngahhh, I hate this clumsy-ass shit," growled Undyne as she fumbled with the coat. "Do I even _need_ this fucking thing? You know how tough I am? Throw some sulfuric acid at me, I dare you." She smiled her shark's smile and gestured theatrically toward her own body. "I bet it wouldn't even sting."

"UNDYNE!" The little scientist's eyes were wide with shock. "I'm not taking any chances with safety. D-do you know how...how b-bad I'd f-f-feel if something I did g-got you h-h-hurt…" Tears began to well in Alphys's eyes.

"Aw, Alphy!" Undyne rushed to back to comfort her lover, cradling her in her arms. "Sorry, hon, I forget sometimes how seriously you take all this safety stuff. I'll be careful. I promise." She reached down a fingertip to wipe away the tear.

"T-thanks, Undyne," sniffled Alphys. The lizard went back to her computer to open up their supply inventory; the fish, after one or two more muffled curses, finished buttoning her ill-fitting coat and donned her Lexan face shield. It had been impossible to find human-made goggles or glasses that Undyne could wear—her head fins got in the way of everything they tried—so they opted at last for the face shield. It was overkill but it reminded Undyne of her days in armor. Also, Alphys had to admit to herself with a _frisson_ of guilty pleasure, she thought Undyne looked sexy in it.

"Okay! Got my nerd coat on, got my plastic windshield. Let's do this thing!" She opened up the first box she'd put down. It was part of the slow trickle of lab supplies that, through Queen Toriel's kindly diplomacy and Ambassador Frisk's uncanny facility for making friends, had started to come in as donations from a few colleges in the state. Some went to Toriel's school; the rest came to Alphys: second-hand glassware, instruments that had been replaced when they got too old, chemicals discarded from stockrooms. Undyne would make regular expeditions from the monster settlement to collect the donations; Papyrus would always chauffeur her, partly because his overflowing bonhomie endeared him to many of the humans and made them easier to deal with, partly because after four months on the Surface he was still the only monster to secure—somehow—a driver's license.

Because Undyne was so eager to help her girlfriend in her new laboratory, Alphys was teaching her how to read chemical names and identify pieces of equipment. The former soldier had protested loudly and frequently that it wouldn't be any use: "Sorry, Alphy, you _know_ how cool I think all this nerdy stuff is that you know, but I'm never gonna be smart enough to understand any of it!" But it turned out that Undyne had an excellent memory for names and jargon, and a wide-eyed fascination with every new thing they came across that warmed Alphys's heart, reminding her of the earliest days of their friendship.

Undyne peered into the cardboard box. "Looks like all old chemicals, Alphy," she said, gingerly lifting out one dusty bottle.

"OK. Read out the name of each one to me, Undyne, and tell me how empty the bottle is. Oh, and tell me what the stuff looks like, just a short d-description. Look inside if the bottle's opaque. Then I'll tell you if you should sh-shelve it or not."

"Gotcha." She read the label on the bottle she'd just pulled out. "Uh…'nickel(II) chloride hexahydrate'," said Undyne, carefully stepping over each syllable. "Bottle says one hundred grams." She opened it up. "Oooh, look! It's bright green! Clumpy green crystals. Maybe half-full."

Alphys smiled and keyed in the information. "Put that one with the regular chemicals."

Undyne deposited the nickel chloride bottle on the appropriate shelf in the laboratory's chemical storage— _still far too empty,_ thought Alphys—and returned to read a second. "'Calcium chloride, anhydrous'. Supposed to be two hundred and fifty grams." She scrunched up her face as she peered into the bottle. "Looks like half of it's dissolved or something, it's all liquidy."

"Crap. Means it's d-deliquesced. Uh, I m-mean, soaked up water from the air. Put it on the bench, we'll figure out what to do with it later."

"Right. Okay, next one." Undyne peered at the brown glass bottle and its decaying label. "Huh, good long name. 'Lithium aluminum…'" She stumbled a little on the last word. "'Hydride', is that how you say that?"

"Lithium aluminum hydride?" Alphys's mouth fell open. "What's that doing in there?! Undyne, don't touch that one—"

"Huh? Why not?" Undyne gave the bottle's cap a testing squeeze. There was a popping noise, the cap fell to the ground in two pieces, and a spurt of brilliant red flame issued from the open mouth.

"FUCK!" Undyne hollered, shocked but not flinching or dropping the bottle. Alphys leapt up from her chair with a scream.

"Don't worry, Alphy, I got this!" Undyne leapt for the nearest sink.

"NOOO! UNDYNE STOP—"

With a warrior's speed and grace Undyne reached the sink in a single bound, dropped the flaming bottle in the basin with one hand while wrenching the cold tap open to full with the other. With an angry hissing noise and then a loud crack, the bottle shattered and a ball of red fire and sparks erupted from the sink. "NGAHHHHH!" Undyne bellowed, stumbling backward from the flames rolling toward her.

Into Alphys's head flashed nightmare images—dripping, melting bodies, bubbling cries for help, outstretched limbs collapsing into pulp. She screamed again and made her own leap, straight at Undyne, wrapping her arms about her torso and hurling her to the ground as the flames bloomed toward the ceiling. Scrabbling to her feet Alphys locked her paws onto Undyne's smoking lab coat and dragged her toward the far corner of the room.

"Alphy?! What are you doing? I'm fine—"

" _Shut up!_ We need to get you to the safety shower!"

The scientist's commanding tone startled Undyne into compliance, and she said nothing more as Alphys reached the shower, pushed her girlfriend under it and yanked the handle. Undyne spluttered at first when the cold water hit her, but soon she was relaxing under the stream, fluttering her fins. She tossed the face shield gently to the floor and began undoing her scorched coat. "Mmmm, Alphy, this water is actually kind of nice."

"Sh-shut up," Alphys said again, but in a tearful murmur as she collapsed against Undyne, letting the water cascade over her as she clutched her lover's waist and wept into her chest.

"Alphy…" Undyne wrapped her hands around Alphys's head, petting her gently. "What's wrong? Why are you taking this so hard? You'd think this was the first fire I ever started in here."

"It's n-not," said Alphys into Undyne's chest. "B-b-but it's the f-first where I th-thought you'd b-be hurt…"

"A little explosion in my face isn't gonna hurt me, Alphy! I blew my own house up making spaghetti, remember?"

"That was d-different. Th-this time...it w-would've been m-my fault. If I h-hadn't t-t-told you to l-look in the b-bottles…" Alphys started crying again.

Undyne knelt, cradling her lover's head against her shoulder. _She's still so fragile,_ Undyne thought. "It's not your fault. Shhhh. Shhhh. You haven't hurt me, Alphy. I'm not even singed. Shhhhhh." They held each other there under the flowing water until Alphys's tears stopped and her body relaxed in Undyne's arms. "There. Do you feel better now?"

"Y-yes." Alphys looked up into Undyne's face and ventured a tentative smile. "You're s-so strong. N-nothing frightens you. I wish I were like that."

"Whoa there! Don't sell yourself short! You fuckin' rocked with that tackle move of yours. Alphy, look into my eyes." She took the scientist's paws in her hands. "You knew exactly what to do to help me and you didn't waste a second doing it. Don't tell me that's not brave and strong." Undyne kissed her. Alphys blushed and cooed with pleasure.

"That's my smart little lizard. Now…" Undyne hauled herself and Alphys to their feet, out from under the still-flowing shower. She pulled on the handle a few times but the water still rained down. "How do you turn this fucking thing off?"

"It's a d-different valve." Alphys twisted the shut-off valve closed. They both looked toward the sink where the trouble had started, halfway expecting a raging inferno, but were surprised at how little had happened. White ash covered everything within a few feet of the sink and the bottles of soap and wash water had slumped in the heat but otherwise the lab looked intact. Alphys sighed in relief.

"It must have b-burnt out quickly, once all the lithium aluminum hydride had reacted. The bottle m-must not have had much in it."

"What the fuck kind of crazy shit catches fire _under water_?! Actually, that's pretty cool." Undyne giggled, then frowned. "I wish I'd known ahead of time though. _You_ knew. I told you, Alphy, I'm too dumb for this stuff."

"You're not dumb! You just need to learn more."

"Okay, if you say so. For now though, Alphy, put me on the simpler jobs, huh? Like maybe cleaning up this fuckin' mess." She groaned and looked around, trying to remember where they'd stashed the mops, but then came the welcome sensation of an arm curling around her waist and a paw reaching underneath the front of her sodden shirt to stroke her scaly belly. She looked down to see Alphys, smiling, with a familiar glint in her eye.

"First things first. As good as you look in a wet T-shirt, Undyne, I think m-maybe we should get out of our soaking clothes."

"Time for a break?"

"Ohhh, yes."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

 **Help Wanted**

"Undyne…"

"Mmmm?"

"We've got to clean up the mess now...d-did we even remember to turn the sink off?"

"'Sjust water. Five more minutes." Undyne curled her arms more snugly around the scientist's body, one hand running over the crest of Alphys's head, while the claws of her other hand ran teasing circles over Alphys's rump.

"Undyne...no fair…" Alphys melted against her lover's body, nuzzling between her breasts. They were sprawled out, languorous and nude, on the full-sized futon than Undyne had insisted on purchasing for the lab breakroom because, as she fulminated one day, "If I have to spend another five fucking seconds fucking my girlfriend on a sticky vinyl couch the color of Mettaton's asscheeks just 'cause Papyrus was thrilled that he found it for us, I'm going to break it over his empty grinning head the next time I see him!" But Undyne really had no heart to get rid of her friend's gift so the couch got shoved into a corner, where now it mostly served as a place for her and Alphys to toss their clothes on their periodic "breaks".

They spent another few minutes cuddling and fondling each other, Undyne's baritone grunts and growls playing off against Alphys's squeaks and whimpers. The old soldier's sense of duty reasserted itself, though, when she happened to glance at the breakroom clock. "Aw, fuck. Is it really almost one? I guess we _should_ stop playing around."

"Yeah…" Alphys didn't move.

Undyne pressed a final, gentle kiss to Alphys's muzzle, then abruptly jumped upright from the bed, scooping her lover up in her arms as she did so and off her feet. Alphys shrieked and giggled, lashing her tail.

"Undyne, w-warn me when you're about to do that!"

"Now why would I warn you? You obviously enjoy the surprise _way_ too much." She kissed Alphys again, then gently lowered her to the ground. "Play time over. Got a shitty job to do, Alphy, so let's get ourselves pumped up to do it. Yeah!" Undyne pumped her fist then went to the hot pink couch— _where DID Papyrus get this?_ Alphys wondered as she followed her—and started to put on her clothes. Alphys only watched for several moments as Undyne slid her clothing over her supple limbs, then caught herself and ran to grab her own garments.

"Undyne, I've been thinking," she ventured when they were almost done. "I th-think...m-maybe I could do with s-some more help around here."

"Aw, you want a different lab assistant, just because I set something on fire again?" Undyne pulled a fearsome grin, but her voice was gentle.

"I d-don't want a _different_ lab assistant, Undyne," Alphys replied, nuzzling up against her lover's side. "I still want you here. Like, I _really_ w-want you here." She blushed and giggled. "And I still think I could teach you a lot. B-but, um, in the meantime, I c-could use someone else here with t-technical experience already."

"Huh. Well, why not just ask some of the techs who used to work in the CORE? Now that it's shut down they could probably use the work."

Alphys's tail drooped. "I d-don't think any of th-them would w-want to w-work with me any more...n-not after…"

"Oh, Alphy. C'mere." Undyne hugged and petted her.

"B-but that's not the _only_ thing, Undyne. See, who I r-really need is someone who kn-knows _human_ technology, not magical tech. And I'm the only one from Underground who's s-studied human science much." Not even Dr. Gaster, genius that he was, had much knowledge of human science and technology for the simple reason that at the time he disappeared, few human artifacts had trickled down from the Surface that could have taught him much. It wasn't until the last few decades of the monsters' exile that evidence of the advanced state of human technology had begun to find its way into the Underground in quantity: books, films, junked machinery and equipment, Sailor Moon DVDs.

Undyne frowned. "But if you're saying that no monster can help us here...then…" Her eyes widened and her teeth glinted with a hint of menace. "You want to get a _human_ to help us?"

"Um...y-yes?"

"Gee, Alphy, I dunno." Undyne had come to love Frisk without reserve, but so far her dealings with the rest of the species hadn't endeared her to anyone else. Most humans she encountered, even those who sounded the most sincere about wanting to help the monsters get themselves settled on the Surface, looked askance at Undyne as though she were preparing to gnaw off someone's leg. "You really think you're gonna find a human who's gonna be happy working with an orange lizard in a lab coat and a—a blue-skinned fish monster—"

"Oh, Undyne!" Now it was Alphys's turn to put comforting arms around her girlfriend. "We know _one_ human who thinks you're every bit as c-cool as I know you are, and I'm sure there are a lot of others out there. All we n-need is to find one. Who, uh, also knows science. And has lab experience. And won't want l-lots of money." Put that way it didn't sound so hopeful, but Alphys was determined to stay cheerful for her lover's sake. "Th-they've got newspapers here and social networks. We c-can put a 'Help Wanted' ad out there."

"And interview people, huh? Alphy, do you know how to do job interviews? 'Cause I sure don't."

"W-what do you mean? You were head of the Royal Guard! D-didn't that mean interviewing applicants?"

"Huh, never thought of it as 'interviewing'. Yeah, guess I did interview people."

"How would you do it? L-like, if someone told you they wanted to be in the Guard?"

"I'd tell them to report to my house. I'd wait for them behind the door, in full armor, and then the moment the door opened I'd holler at the top of my lungs—" Alphys covered her ears as Undyne demonstrated her technique. "—and then I'd summon up a spear and—"

"Um, hehe, no n-need to show me," reassured Alphys, grasping her girlfriend's arm in both paws as Undyne poised herself for a spear-cast. "I think we need to look for other s-skills than just not running away from you." A thought struck her. "How did Papyrus react?"

"How do _you_ think?"

"'Bathroom'?"

"Bullseye. He did it again the second time too, that big smiling bonehead. And the third." They shared a laugh. "Okay, so it's like I said before, I can't do interviews. But you're a cool brainy lizard who's studied human stuff. I'm sure _you_ can handle it just fine."

"I j-just don't know, Undyne…" Alphys tried to think of any job interview scenes from any anime she'd watched but nothing helpful came to mind. "I could ask them qu-questions about their scientific knowledge and experience, but I think a job interview is s-supposed to find out more than that. You're supposed to f-find out what they're like as a person, whether they'd actually b-be good to work with. I'm n-not sure I c-could do that. I'm n-not a good p-people p-p-person, you know…"

"The hell you aren't," said Undyne as she drew her girlfriend into a warm embrace. "Still, it's not like we got any other choice. I mean, where are we gonna find someone who _both_ knows what humans are like _and_ is a whiz at judging the characters of total strangers?"

Alphys and Undyne looked into each other's faces at the same moment.

"...No."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

 **Return from Exile**

Stephen Corey sipped his morning coffee—grimacing as he did so, because he had no milk for it—and winced as he went through the malodorous, decaying foodstuffs in his refrigerator. After almost four months of unplanned "vacation" there was scarcely one item in the fridge that hadn't transformed in his absence into a reeking, sludgy horror. Averting his face he dropped a particularly slimy sack of greenish mush into the garbage can, trying not to think yet of the clean-up job awaiting him once the fridge was empty.

Then he'd have to sort through four months of mail. While vegetating in Oregon he'd had just enough presence of mind to send rent checks for his one-bedroom apartment, eating up his meager savings, but he'd taken care of nothing else; he returned to a heap of envelopes that spilled out into the hall when he opened the front door. _Ugh. I haven't exactly done myself any favors with my little "sabbatical", have I?_

Stephen was just washing the goo from the last bag of putrescent vegetables off of his hands when his phone rang. He permitted himself a relieved sigh when he saw who it was; after months of resolutely ignoring the world, Stephen wasn't looking forward to dealing with anyone or anything the least bit official.

"Hey there, Evelyn. Good to hear your voice again."

"Great to hear yours, Steve! Sorry, I didn't get your message that you were back in town till late last night or I'd've called you yesterday. Surprised the hell out of me! I thought you were just going to Portland for two weeks and then you _vanished_ on us. Where the hell have you been?"

"Place called Otter Rock on the coast of Oregon. Cousin of mine who lives in Portland had a cabin he said I could crash at if he wasn't using it. After my...family business was finished, I took him up on his offer. Ended up just...sort of...staying there for a while." Stephen attempted a laugh. "Guess I went a little crazy. Turned my phone off, slept all the time, drank too much."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Steve. So...I guess things didn't go so well with your folks?"

"...they went."

"Oh. Anything you wanna talk about?"

"No, not yet. Sorry, Evelyn. Maybe I'll feel better about it in a few days."

"Aww, Steve, that's rough. Hey...I've got time to spare today and I need to run an errand anyway. Why don't I take you out to lunch first? You sound like you could use a friendly face, and a big hug."

 _I do,_ Stephen thought. _And it's not like there's anything to cook here._ "Sure thing, Evelyn, I'd love to get together today. Where do you want to go?"

Two hours later Stephen was sitting with Evelyn in the diner three blocks from his apartment building, nibbling absently on a pickle spear while his friend played with the remains of her salad. They'd been conversing on and off, mostly about Evelyn's news because of Stephen's reluctance to say much about his own.

"Too bad that things didn't work out between you and Maura, Evelyn. You two seemed so sweet together."

"Nah, it was never all _that_ serious. And it's not like we're no longer on speaking terms or some shit like that. We just thought it'd be cool to fuck around for a while, see whether it went anywhere. It didn't, no big deal. But _you,_ " she said, smiling and pointing at him with her fork, "you've always been a soppy romantic. I swear, long as I've known you, you always get sad when anyone you know has a break-up, like they've just lost the love of their life or something."

Stephen looked at his plate with a wistful smile. "What can I say? I still believe in true love." He glanced back up at Evelyn. "I thought it was you, once."

Evelyn's smile softened. "Three whole weeks."

"Yeah. Things were different, then, weren't they?"

"Very different. I'm glad you understood, though, when I told you why it wasn't going to work." She sighed. "I lost a lot of friends that year. But not you."

Stephen reached out and took Evelyn's hand, holding it tenderly for a moment. "Thanks, Evelyn."

For a minute they picked at their food in silence.

"So," Evelyn said at last. "What are you going to do with yourself now, Steve? Look for your true love?"

Stephen guffawed. "Hah! Like I've had any luck in _that_ department. Nah, I guess I'd better look for a job now. Not that I was having much luck in that department either before I went to Oregon."

"What are you thinking of doing?"

"Not sure I can be too picky now. I'd love to work in a lab again but haven't worked a science job for three years and I don't imagine I'm going to get one now, if there's even an opening like that around here." Out of curiosity he thumbed open his phone to check out Craigslist. "Bet you there's not a single chemistry-related job listing that's less than a month old."

"Steve! What kind of attitude is that?" Evelyn glared at him for a moment, but then the glare faded. "Oh, I'm sorry. I just...you know, I hate to see you beating yourself up all the time."

Stephen sighed. "I'll try to be more optimistic." He punched in his search terms and scanned the results. "Huh. Guess I was wrong, there is an opening for a lab assistant that was posted just three days ago. Let me see if it says where…'Alphyne Laboratories'. Never heard of them. They're in Ebottsville?"

Evelyn dropped her fork with a loud clink onto her plate, eyes staring. "Did you say 'Ebottsville'?"

"Yeah. Weird, isn't it? I mean, I've _been_ to Ebottsville. Well, been _through_ Ebottsville. It's, like, eight derelict houses and a gas station at the top of the pass. Hell, I'm surprised anyone lives there. Nobody wants to do anything near that mountain except drive past it as quickly as possible."

"Steve...you mean you don't know? Haven't you read any of the news?"

"Don't know what? And no. I've spent four months trying to avoid the news, and everything else, remember?"

"So you know nothing about the—the _monsters._ "

"'Monsters'?! What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Steve, four months ago, a delegation of, well, of _monsters_ emerged from Mt. Ebott and are now living in Ebottsville."

Stephen cackled. "Great joke, Evelyn—" he started, but the look on his friend's face stopped him and his mirth turned into bafflement. "Oh, come _on!_ You believe this crap? I know Mt. Ebott's a creepy place and we've heard all the stories about it being haunted or whatever, ever since we were little kids, but that's just ghost stories for summer camp. It's not real."

In response Evelyn wordlessly tapped at her phone and then shoved it in front of Stephen. It was an archived news story from the _Highlands Tribune_ 's website. "LOCAL AUTHORITIES MEET WITH MT. EBOTT CREATURES," said the headline, and below it was a picture of two strange figures standing together. One was a statuesque, white-furred creature with a horned face reminiscent of a Nubian goat's, clad in a violet robe. _Could be a costume…_ thought Stephen doubtfully, but the second figure removed all doubt: it was, unquestionably, an animated skeleton wearing a red scarf and a comically large grin. Stephen could see clearly through the figure's ribcage and through the gaps between the bones of his limbs: this was no costume.

"Hell's bells, Evelyn! Where'd they come from and what do they want?"

"From inside the mountain, it seems. They couldn't get out until recently, I don't know the reason why." Evelyn took back her phone. "And it seems they don't really want anything, except a place to live."

"Jesus." Stephen leaned his head into his hands. "And there's been no trouble?"

"Not from them. This is going to sound weird, Steve, but everyone who's actually talked to any of them say they're... _nice._ " Evelyn pushed her plate from her and dabbed her lips, signalling for the check. "They've kind of taken over Ebottsville and have been building a settlement there. Not everyone's too happy about it but for the most part they just seem to want to stay to themselves."

"And hire a lab assistant," Stephen put in, tapping his own phone.

Evelyn laughed. "That's a new one, I gotta admit. I didn't think they wanted any more to do with us than they absolutely had to, though the goat-looking one you saw in the picture—her name is 'Toriel', she seems to be their leader—has been arranging meetings with people here in the city. Trying to be neighborly, I guess."

"What about the people who were already in Ebottsville?"

"All six or seven of them? They cleared out. Except the guy who runs the gas station, weirdly. He's said he's fine staying there. So if you do take that job," Evelyn added with a giggle, "you'll have at least _one_ friend there."

Stephen rolled his eyes. "I'll believe this job and this 'Alphyne Labs' exist when I see them, Evelyn. Not a minute before."

The bill arrived. Stephen fumbled for his wallet but Evelyn stopped him. "Are you kidding? I know you can't have much money. Don't worry, Steve, I got this."

Stephen smiled. "I really appreciate this, Evelyn. It's been great to see you again."

"You too." They both stood up and Evelyn gave Stephen the big hug she promised. "Keep in touch this time, huh? And you'd better let me know how things go in Ebottsville."

" _If_ I go, Evelyn. _If_ I go."

As she gathered up her purse and headed for the door Evelyn shot Stephen a piercing look. "You'll go. Oh, I know you, Steve. You're always talking about how you're afraid to take any chances but you're not gonna pass _this_ up. Not a science nerd like you."

"I have to admit, I am curious."

"Good. Well, off to the pharmacy for my girl pills. Call me!" With that, Evelyn sauntered out of the diner.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

 **Xenia**

Stephen looked around at the hilly country through which he was driving as he turned his dented white Civic off Highway 271 to labor up Mountain Haven Road, the little-used two-lane track that wound up and around the foothills of Mt. Ebott until it rejoined the main highway a few miles to the north. There wasn't much to be seen yet, only trees and wildflowers growing on either side of the meandering ribbon of cracked asphalt.

He'd been up this way once before, about seven years ago, moved by sheer curiosity about what the mountain was really like. As far back as he could remember into his boyhood Mt. Ebott had enjoyed an evil reputation. Local legendry whispered numerous tales of strange disappearances, bloodthirsty creatures who haunted the slopes at night, nightmares and madness afflicting anyone foolish enough to camp on the mountain. Even as a boy Stephen hadn't placed much credence in these wild stories but he couldn't deny that there was some quality about Mt. Ebott that kept people away. The road he was on only existed because, decades before Stephen's time, a developer had thought to exploit the winter snows by constructing a ski resort, but within two years of the opening fanfare attendance at the resort withered away to nothing and a year later it was closed and torn down. Only the microscopic town of Ebottsville and its lonely filling station were left as a relic of humankind's attempt to colonize Mt. Ebott. Stephen had taken one look at the forlorn place, noticed that all the pumps were out of order, and driven back down the mountain. He'd seen nothing but some pretty scenery and a few birds.

Stephen gritted his teeth as his creaky hatchback jounced over the pocked, uneven surface. Seven years had not improved the surface of Mountain Haven Road one bit. He tugged compulsively at his collar, constricted by an unaccustomed necktie, and tried to avoid entertaining the nagging suspicion that he was being pranked, or worse. What would monsters want with an underemployed chemist? All he had to go on was a brief phone interview with someone who called herself "Dr. Alphys" (the name carefully spelled out for him), who quizzed him for a few minutes in a high-pitched voice with a tendency to stammer, sounding for all the world like an overenthused college freshman. _If that's the voice of a monster,_ Stephen told himself, _then I'll eat one of my own socks._ "Dr. Alphys" had asked him a few questions about his education and what sort of lab work he'd done before, but mostly she gushed about how thrilled she was that someone answered her ad and how she was finally going to meet "a real human scientist". _Yeah, I bet you're thrilled._

The road was beginning to straighten out and level off as it entered a small valley: Ebottsville was just ahead. Two more curves, and the town lay directly before him. He saw, he gasped, and he pulled the Civic over.

Stephen had tried to prepare himself for this moment, spending some time the night before skimming news articles about the monsters' appearance, but still he was unprepared for the spectacle of the new Ebottsville spread out in the distance, shimmering in the hazy morning sunlight. There was the Mountain Haven service station, forlorn no longer: trees had been cleared in a wide strip on both sides of the highway and dozens of new structures clustered about the nucleus of older houses. Smoke rose from several chimneys into the cool September air, and Stephen could make out numerous figures moving among the buildings; there was a general air of bustle and industry. He watched at a distance for a few minutes longer, then restarted the Civic and headed toward the town.

The distant figures resolved themselves into individual monsters as he approached the gas station. Stephen had attempted to prepare a little for his trip to Ebottsville, spending some time the night before browsing through news items about the monsters' emergence, but his cursory shuffling through pictures on his phone hadn't prepared him for the astonishing variety in morphology the monsters exhibited—humanoid, animallike, vegetative, even inorganic; walking, crawling, wriggling, flying, floating, or not troubling to move at all.

As the monsters took notice of Stephen's approaching car, many of them quietly disappeared into doorways or windows or round the corners of buildings. Some stayed put and eyed him cautiously. A pair of doglike monsters, who had been standing together under a sign reading "GRILLBY'S" and bussing each other's noses, suddenly interrupted themselves, sniffed the air and barked, prompting two more canines to emerge from the establishment and join them in surveillance of the newcomer. A globular, cyclopean creature resembling the sidekick from _Monsters, Inc._ regarded him unblinking from a nearby window.

 _They're supposed to be nice. Don't panic. They're supposed to be nice._

He parked in the service station's tiny lot, which held no other vehicle. Stephen stepped out of his Civic and straight into a small gaggle of excited, pint-sized monsters that had come bounding up to his vehicle once it stopped moving, shouting overlapping questions at him and at each other: "Is that a human?" "Are you a human?" "Can I look at your car?" "Papyrus has a car, do you know Papyrus?" Before he could even think about addressing any of these inquiries a larger monster loomed up behind the youngsters: another canine, clad incongruously in a pink tank top with a smiling dog face on it.

"Watch out, children. There's a strange human moving about the town. You'd best stay safe with your parents until we can find him and make sure he's friendly." The dog peered through Stephen with narrowed eyes then hustled the impromptu welcoming party away.

A little confused, Stephen looked around the filling station. "OUT OF ORDER" signs blocked off all the pumps. _Sheesh, still?!_ Then he went into the convenience store. _This is going to be a beauty,_ he thought as he entered, his mind conjuring up images of mouldering linoleum, long-gone brand names, and roaches scuttling into corners. To his surprise, however the place looked utterly normal: tidy, well-stocked, full of familiar products. But there were definitely a few brands here he didn't recognize. _Pretty sure I've never seen "Nice Cream" before_ , thought Stephen when he saw the ice cream freezer on the far wall. The wrinkled, grey-haired proprietor of the store was sitting placidly in a folding chair behind his counter, cheap reading glasses perched on his nose, newspaper in front of him, penciling words into a crossword puzzle; he didn't bother to look up when Stephen entered.

"Excuse me," said Stephen, going to the counter. "Excuse me, can you tell me when you think the gas pumps will be working again?"

The proprietor didn't look up from his newspaper. "This station hasn't pumped any gas since Nixon was President, young man. If you need a fill-up there's a Shell station eight miles south of here off the main highway."

"Well, I don't really need gas right now, I was just curious." He looked around uncertainly. "I'm curious about something else, too. Um...what's it been like? Staying here?"

The old man kept at his crossword. "Can't complain. Business has never been better. Nice change from ten customers a week. Even had to hire staff to keep up."

At this moment a door in the back of the convenience store banged open and a monster resembling an orange tabby cat entered, struggling with a stack of crated pastries. He took no notice of Stephen, preoccupied as he was with muttering to himself around the cigarette clamped in his mouth. "...do all the damn work around here while the old fart reads the damn papers all day, I hate this damn gas station, flippin' burgers was better than this…" Stephen was able to catch before the feline monster slammed down the crates, not bothering with shelving their contents. " _I'm on break!"_ he yelled as he disappeared back through the rear door. The old proprietor continued his crossword-solving, uninterrupted. Stephen watched him for a few moments.

"Can I help you find anything?" the man said without looking up.

"Uh, no, I'm all right." _Guess it'd be rude not to buy something,_ he thought. Curious, he glanced over the crates of pastries the monster had thrown down and inspected one of them. It was an ordinary-enough looking Danish in a plastic wrapper, but it bore an unfamiliar purple label with a smiling five-eyed face and the caption, "By spiders, for spiders!" He shrugged and took it to the counter.

"Burgy, customer," the proprietor called out without raising his head. When nothing happened the proprietor yelled, " _Customer!"_ more loudly. The rear door banged open again and the feline monster reappeared, still smoking and still grumbling.

"...makes me deal with all the customers too, the shriveled old prune, no wonder this place was losing money..." he mumbled. Then he got behind the counter, instantly cut his monologue short, dropped his cigarette on an ashtray and favored Stephen with a ghastly forced grin. "Will that be all for you today, O customer?" he asked, his voice dripping rancid honey.

"Uh, yeah, for now."

"That will be one dollar and ninety-seven cents." Stephen pushed two crumpled bills across the counter. "Burgy" rang up the purchase and dropped three pennies into Stephen's palm. "Thanks, buddy. _Do_ come again." He snatched up his still-burning cigarette and strode off toward the back. "...cheap ass human, interrupts my damn break to buy one cheap ass thing…" Stephen overheard as Burgy once again made his exit.

Stephen looked at his Danish and then at the proprietor, who was busy erasing some of his words.

"I just have to ask, sir…" Stephen ventured. "Doesn't any of...of _this_ get too weird for you? Doesn't any of it worry you?"

"Young man," said the old proprietor, dropping his pencil. He took off his reading glasses and fixed Stephen with his grey eyes. "I will tell you this. That night when that goat woman and her kid and all the rest of their friends came out of this mountain? I slept the first good night's sleep I've had here in more than forty years." He put his glasses back on with an air of finality and resumed work on the crossword puzzle.

Stephen lingered for a moment longer, then left the shop, going back to his car. He opened the door, tossed the Danish onto the passenger's seat, and started to climb in.

"Hey, new guy," came a voice from behind him. "Aren't you going to say hello?"

Stephen turned away from his car to face the source of the voice. It was a skeletal monster, not unlike the red-scarved, gangly fellow who appeared in many of the photos Stephen had browsed through, but this skeleton was short and squat, barely coming up to Stephen's chest. His fleshless smile was broad and his eye-sockets glowed with two points of warm white light. His hands were jammed into the pockets of a baggy blue hoodie but as he approached he stuck out his left hand in a gesture of welcome.

"I always like to say hi to every stranger who comes to Ebottsville. My name's Sans. Shake?"

"Sure. Stephen Corey's my name." Stephen accepted the proffered hand, wondering what the skeleton's bony grasp would be like, but was surprised to feel not bones against his palm but something like sheet rubber. "Good to meet you."

"Yeah," Sans replied, but his grin lessened. Quickly releasing Stephen's hand he pulled from his left sleeve a limp bag of red rubber. "Aw, nuts. Thing must have sprung a leak."

"Is that—a whoopee cushion?!"

"Not any more it ain't," Sans said quickly, shoving the remains into his pocket. "Anyway, Steve—it's okay if I call you Steve?"

"My best friends all do."

"Whoa, hey there, slow down. I'm a pretty friendly guy but we _did_ just meet." The skeleton's grin seemed to widen and there was a twinkle in the light of his eyes. "But I'll call you Steve anyway."

Stephen had to smile. "What's your question, Sans?"

"What d'you think of our town, Steve?"

Stephen wasn't sure how to answer. He hadn't seen much yet, but already he was amazed at how transformed the place was from the sad huddle of unkempt houses he'd seen seven years before. "I'm...really impressed," he said at last.

"That's great to hear. Everyone's been working hard on getting things up and running here. Well, everyone but me. Hard work isn't one of my talents." He produced from somewhere about his person a bottle of Heinz and popped it open. "Can I offer you a drink?"

"Uh...no, no thank you."

Sans took a long swig. _Where does it go?_ Stephen wondered. "Ah, that's the stuff. Anyway, Steve, you just passing through?"

"Er, not exactly. I'm here in answer to a help wanted ad from some place called 'Alphyne Laboratories'." He showed Sans the crumpled printout of the Craigslist ad he'd stuffed into his pocket. "They want a lab assistant."

Sans looked at the paper with a bemused chuckle. "Really? Alphys and Undyne put an ad in the classifieds? You're in for some fun, kiddo. Here, lemme show you where to go." He gestured with a bony arm northward down the street. "They've got the biggest building in town, can't miss it. The pink one off to the left."

"Thanks, Sans."

The skeleton regarded him quizzically. "You really thinking of taking a job here?"

"Well, uh…" Stephen looked up and down the street uncertainly. "I'm willing to chance it, anyway."

Sans nodded and took a step closer. "If you get the job, Steve, I need to know whether you mean to stick at it. Alphys and Undyne are two of my best friends. They're good people. I'd hate to think you're just here on a dare or a whim or that you'll bail on them once the novelty of commuting to Monster-Town wears off." The luminous points in his eye sockets went out at once, his posture stiffened, and he fixed Stephen with a black gaze. "Human. You had better be taking this seriously."

Stephen's blood ran cold and he turned pale; he was seized with the irrational feeling that this diminutive skeleton was somehow towering over him. "Sans, I promise I'm treating this seriously," he managed to say. "If the job's good, I want to keep it."

Sans instantly relaxed back into his slouch, the light came back into his eyes and he grinned. "Good to hear it, new guy." Stephen didn't immediately relax and Sans noticed. "Hey, no hard feelings, Steve. I was just _rib_ -bing you."

Stephen stared for a second, then groaned. "Sans, that was awful."

"Put a smile back on your face, didn't it? But seriously, I hope you get the job. It'll be great to see a fresh face around town. And a car that's not my brother's." He looked up and down the Civic and in the windows, and Stephen suddenly felt self-conscious about the scratched paint, the stained upholstery and the fast-food bags wadded up in the back. "I like it. Looks comfy. Lived in. Now my brother, he's always washing and vacuuming and waxing _his_ car. He's really good at stuff like that."

"I wish I could say the same."

"Ah, don't sweat it. We can't all be as cool as my brother."

"I hope I get to meet him soon."

"If you end up working with Undyne you will. They're like that." Sans held his two bony index fingers together. "But you'd better get going to your interview, huh? Tell Alphys and Undyne I said 'hi'." He stuck out his left hand again. "A shake for the road, Steve?"

Stephen grasped Sans's hand and yelped.

Sans giggled and held up his hand, palm out to show the concealed joy buzzer. "Always good to have a back-up. Good luck, Steve." With that the skeleton ambled away.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

 **A Royal Welcome**

"Alphyne Laboratories", said the letters stenciled in black ink on the front door. At least now Stephen knew why it was called that.

Among the charming wooden houses and cottages that made up the bulk of the monsters' new construction in Ebottsville, the Laboratories stood out in stark exception: a brutalist concrete box, painted institutional pink, with tiny windows and metal ductwork snaking up walls and across the roof. An intercom was installed next to the entrance and Stephen pushed the button.

"H-hello?" crackled a familiar, high-pitched voice. "Who is this?"

"My name's Stephen Corey. I have a ten a.m. appointment, about the opening for a laboratory assistant."

"Oh, yes, yes! You came!" The voice bubbled with excitement. "G-give me a moment, I'll get the door." The intercom fell silent and several moments later the door swung open. There stood a short, plump monster in a white lab coat, paws wringing together with evident anxiety, whose yellow-orange scales and bulky tail reminded Stephen of a bearded dragon. A pair of round _pince nez_ spectacles balanced improbably on her muzzle.

"Dr. Alphys?" asked Stephen. _Looks like I'll have to research sock recipes…_

She replied with a toothy grin and a delighted nod. "That's me! It's great to meet you, Mr. Corey—or d'you want me to c-call you 'Stephen'—"

"'Stephen' is fine. It's a pleasure to meet you too, Dr. Alphys."

"Come in! Let m-me introduce you. And p-please, you can just call me 'Alphys' if you want." Dr. Alphys led Stephen in through a sparsely furnished anteroom and then into a larger room furnished with a large table and whiteboards on three of the walls, on which some barely legible calculations were scrawled. Three figures stood there in expectation. Stephen realized he'd seen all of them before, at least once or twice, in the photographs he'd perused online. Best of all he recognized the monster who stood in the center of the small group: tall, statuesque, robed in violet, her long goat-like face bearing a warm and welcoming smile.

 _Toriel. Why is she here?_

On her left stood an even taller monster, lean and muscular in build, also smiling, though the monster's villainous-looking eyepatch and the twin rows of sharklike teeth revealed by the smile rendered its effect less welcoming than terrifying. The monster's dark blue scales gleamed under the cool fluorescent lighting and fish-like red-and-blue fins stuck out of their head, one giving the appearance of a flowing red ponytail. Dr. Alphys went to this monster's side, clasping one of their hands in her paw. _Ah...must be the "Undyne" whom Sans mentioned._ Undyne favored their little companion with a warm glance, then fixed a baleful yellow eye on Stephen.

On Toriel's right stood a human child: round-faced, olive-complexioned, with long dark hair and hands politely clasped in front of them. Stephen's mind went over the photos he had seen. This child _was_ in some of them, he recalled, but he'd figured that maybe the kid was the first human to stumble upon and befriend the monsters upon their appearance on Mt. Ebott, like young Agent K in _Men in Black_ giving his flowers to the aliens _._ But what were they doing _here?_ Stephen discreetly studied the child: they were small, smaller even than the diminutive Sans had been, wearing an oversized pink and purple rugby shirt that made them look smaller still. They looked young, painfully young. But the solemn countenance and the deep brown eyes that the child turned on Stephen were calm and appraising, studying him in their turn.

Dr. Alphys looked uncertainly from Stephen to Toriel to Frisk and then back. "Um," she began, skittish eyes darting about, but Toriel stopped her with a raised paw.

"Dr. Alphys," she said. The contralto voice was melodious, kindly; to hear it warmed Stephen's heart like a glass of fine claret. "If I may. My child and I have a few words we would first say to our visitor. Then you may conduct your interview."

 _My child?_

"Y-yes! Yes, your majesty." Dr. Alphys visibly relaxed, evidently glad of Toriel's intervention.

Queen Toriel stepped forward a pace, arms held out in greeting. "Mr. Stephen Corey. As you are the first human from the world at large to seek a place in our new home to work alongside us, I feel constrained as the leader of my people to welcome you in person, on behalf of all monsterkind. I am honored to make your acquaintance." She placed a paw on her breast and bowed.

A strange impulse took hold of Stephen. He had been intending a mere polite bow in reply, but instead he sank to one knee, head lowered. "No, your majesty...the honor of meeting the queen of monsters is all mine."

 _Good Lord, where did THAT come from?_ said a voice in Stephen's bowed head. _You're looking for a lab job, not a part in "The Dark Crystal"._ But he inwardly he quelled the voice and maintained his respectful posture.

Toriel laughed, a musical, bleating chuckle. "Would that all humans were as courteous as you, Stephen Corey! Please stand. I am the monsters' queen but I am not yours. You may call me 'Toriel'."

"Thank you, Qu—Toriel," Stephen replied, getting to his feet. "And you may call me 'Stephen'. Or 'Steve', if you like."

She smiled her luminous smile. "I shall call you 'Stephen', then. Permit me now to introduce my dear child, Ambassador Frisk. They would also extend you their greetings."

The human child stepped forward. Stephen tried not to stare. _THIS is Ambassador Frisk?_ The name he had seen, but in his late-night online reading he had utterly failed to connect that name with the image of the small child who was always seen in the company of the monsters. _And Frisk is Toriel's...child?_

Ambassador Frisk bowed low, their solemn face now brightened with a friendly smile. Stephen bowed in return; Frisk replied with a small noise of delight, then began to address him in sign. _Oh dear...I don't know any ASL…_ Stephen began to think, but then Toriel stepped in to supply a running translation.

"My child is also honored to meet you, Stephen," she said. "They hope that, whether or not you succeed in finding employment here, you return from New New Home—Frisk!" She turned a mildly reproachful gaze on her child; Frisk only beamed back, eyes twinkling. Dr. Alphys covered her mouth with her free paw; Undyne barked out a laugh that prompted a warning nudge in the ribs. "My child, we are _not_ naming our new capital _that._ Now, please finish your statement." Both of them turned back to Stephen and Frisk resumed signing. "They hope that you return from our city with kindness for my people in your heart. They hope that you learn what they themselves learned, that humans have nothing to fear from monsterkind and everything to gain from their friendship, because the monsters want nothing more than to live on the Surface alongside their human friends in peace."

Frisk dropped their hands and Toriel rubbed a large, soft paw over their brown hair. "Thank you, dear child. That was very well said." Frisk raised their right hand to their mother, palm out and middle two fingers folded down, and uttered another little sound of quiet joy; then they turned their attention back to Stephen, hands clasped together again, solemnity restored.

Toriel nodded at Dr. Alphys. "We are done. You may continue with your interview, Doctor."

The scientist looked nonplussed for a second, then reboarded her train of thought. "Th-thank you, your majesty, Ambassador Frisk. Now, uh...Stephen, first let m-me introduce my partner here at Alphyne Laboratories, my dear colleague Undyne. You'll be working closely with her."

"'Colleague'," Undyne whispered too loudly. Dr. Alphys elbowed her ribs again. Undyne strode forward, one webbed hand held out, advancing upon Stephen with her smile at its widest and a gleam in her single eye. Stephen suppressed the momentary impulse to bolt from the room. "Good to meetcha Steve!" Undyne shouted at Stephen's face, treating him to a whiff of fishy breath. She grabbed his right hand and squeezed hard. "Now here's how this is gonna work: Alphy here is gonna make sure you know all the nerdy stuff you say you know, but _I'm_ gonna make sure of something more important. I've got to know whether you've got the fighting spirit, the _passion_ to work for us. 'Cause it's a tough world in there, Steve." She gestured an emphatic arm toward the entrance to the lab and brought her grin closer. " _Tough._ I have to know you're tough enough to survive it. Breakable glass everywhere, dangerous chemicals, deadly germs, high voltage, fires, _explosions—"_ She halted her enthusiastic peroration, however, when she noticed that Dr. Alphys was shaking her head frantically and drawing a paw across her neck. "Oh. Uh, yeah. Uh, we stopped having those. I mean, it's still _tough_ , Steve, but it's not a deathtrap or anything! Sorry, Alphy," she added _sotto voce._ "The Queen and Frisk here are gonna sit in too and maybe ask some questions. You cool with that?"

Stephen's brow contracted. Undyne's cavalier manner worried him, but he was willing to chalk up her litany of danger to gallows humor—after all, even the best labs had the occasional fire or spill. But the prospect of answering a string of questions under the magisterial gaze of Queen Toriel and the preternatural self-assurance of her child—now that wasn't merely worrying, it was frightening. Still, here he was.

"Yes, I'm agreeable," Stephen replied.

"Great!" Undyne thumped him on the back, unseating his eyeglasses.

Dr. Alphys grinned with a hint of nervous ingratiation. "Then l-let's get started then, okay? Stephen, you can sit here." She indicated a chair at the end of the long table. Stephen almost sat down, but noticed that Dr. Alphys and Undyne were waiting, politely at attention, for Toriel and Frisk to take their seats on Stephen's right. He waited with them, then sat in his chair and strove to compose himself. He noted that Dr. Alphys had in front of her a printout of his resume, but Undyne did not. With a shock he then saw that Toriel also had a copy—and so did Frisk.

 _What's going on here?_

Stephen felt his composure starting to slip. His pulse was uncomfortably loud in his ears and he controlled his breathing only with effort.

 _Not again…_


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

 **A Flash before One's Eyes**

Stephen remembered his last interview for a lab position.

It had been about fifteen months ago. He'd been kicking around from one temp job to another for a couple years, disliking the mindless tasks he was assigned and the low pay but rather liking work where he didn't really have to prove himself other than by showing up on time and not making a complete hash of things. And you didn't have to _interview_ for such work, not really, once you got into it. The agency would call you up and ask if you could show up on such and such a day at this or that place, and that'd be the end of it. It was a passable routine. A few times a month he'd search for "chemistry" or "laboratory" on job sites and file a perfunctory application or two, never expecting nor especially wanting to hear anything back. That, also, was a passable routine.

He quietly panicked when one of his routine applications got a response. A small analytical laboratory south of Highlands was looking for a lab technician with experience in liquid chromatography, and Stephen had claimed on his resume to have such experience (he'd run a few HPLC samples for one organic chemistry lab class back in his undergrad days): would he like to discuss the position with them? Stephen almost e-mailed back that he wasn't in the market anymore but instead he agreed. He stumbled through a phone interview somehow, with the help of a large glass of Cheap Red to settle his nerves and some last-second cramming from his instrumental analysis textbooks, and the company (Fordyce Labs? Forsythe? it had been something like that) called him in for a sit-down interview.

He'd had only two people to face that day rather than four—not kindly-faced monsters or precocious children, sadly, but human adults. The senior chemist he met with was pleasant enough in his greetings but the human resource consultant who accompanied him carried himself with a chilly air of professional distance, and when they'd all exchanged pleasantries and sat down in a conference room the HR man asked the first question.

"We see here that your resume doesn't list any relevant job experience later than 2012. Can you please explain why you left your last position and what you have been doing since then?"

Stephen knew this question would be asked, he _knew_ it, and he had tried to think beforehand of ways to answer it, Evelyn had even offered to rehearse with him, but the whole subject had been too painful to think about and besides he was a smart and articulate guy, he could surely come up with _some_ kind of answer when the time arrived, just like all those times he'd written last-minute papers or bluffed through exam questions in school, except that now the answer _wasn't_ coming to him, and he was wildly vacillating between wanting to spill the truth in all its ugliness or make up some plausible lie or even an implausible one, and God he wanted a glass of wine to loosen the tongue and dull the shame, and as the seconds ticked past without any further word from his mouth than a shameful little "Well…" he knew he was getting himself in trouble and the HR man's eyes were cold and the senior chemist's eyes were doubtful so he had to say _something_ , so words started coming out his mouth and every third one of them was "um" or "uh" or "er" and his heart was pounding and the limping excuses his words were forming made his head ache and why couldn't they just _understand—_

He'd polished off the bottle of Cheap Red when he got back home, even though it was barely an hour past lunchtime. He called in a pretended illness the next day and stayed in bed. A week later he took one fleeting look at the e-mail the analytical firm sent him, deleted it, and opened another bottle.

Stephen stopped looking at job listings altogether for many months after that.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

 **Scientaster**

It would be different this time. Stephen would not be granted the mercy of an opportunity for immediate failure. He would be given a chance to relax first, a chance to hope, before the axe fell.

"So, uh…" began Dr. Alphys, tapping her paws up and down on the table during a long moment of indecision. Stephen waited, nerves on edge, as four sets of eyes surveyed him; then the scientist put her paws together, decision made. "Stephen, before we start asking you any questions, I th-think it's only fair that you should know what Alphyne Laboratories is all about and why we want your help. You see, um...when we were still d-down in the Underground, the King and Queen established the Royal Research Laboratories so we could d-develop all the technology that made living in the Underground, uh, well, _livable._ I, um, I _used_ to be the R-Royal Scientist in charge of the Lab, but th-then...well...then w-we were f- _freed_ , and th-then…" Dr. Alphys sputtered to a halt. Undyne scooted her chair closer to the scientist's and whispered something in her ear; at the same time she rested a hand gently atop Dr. Alphys's clasped paws.

Toriel stepped into the breach. "What Dr. Alphys is trying to say, Stephen," she said, her voice gentle, "is that, after the destruction of the Barrier, it proved...necessary, for reasons of state, to dismiss Dr. Alphys from the position of Royal Scientist." Dr. Alphys, hearing these words, hid her face in her paws. "But because she is, by every measure, unquestionably our most capable and versatile scientist—" At this Dr. Alphys raised her head again, and Stephen saw that she was blushing. "—I have decided to support her efforts to carry on her researches here on the Surface, this time under independent auspices."

Stephen nodded. "I think I understand, Dr. Alphys. You used to be working for the government, but now you're working for yourself, but funded by a government grant."

Dr. Alphys smiled. "That's kind of a f-funny way of putting it, but yeah, that's what I'm doing, with Undyne's help." Undyne grinned at this.

"But what sort of research is your focus, Dr. Alphys?"

"Well, um...everything?" She punctuated her remark with a nervous giggle. "B-back when I was the Royal Scientist I was k-kinda responsible for, well, everything. I inherited m-most of the work from the previous Royal Scientist, Dr. Gaster. Now he was a true g-genius! He designed the CORE—um, that's what we called the generator that ended up powering the whole Underground. But in the Lab we studied and worked on _every_ field. Th-there were so few of us, we couldn't specialize. We had to t-teach ourselves to do it all. Energy t-technology, computers, robotics, materials science, m-medical technology—well, s-sort of—not m-m-medical exactly…" Once again Dr. Alphys flustered herself into silence.

Toriel again took up the thread. "Stephen, when we were confined to the Underground, we were compelled to develop everything we needed on our own. We evolved a science and technology far different from yours, yet serving many of the same functions. Now that we live again alongside humans on the Surface, we do hope we can share with you, in some measure, the benefits of that human science which has bloomed so wondrously in the centuries since we were last among you. But we monsters still are determined to learn and do as much as we can by ourselves." Toriel's soft brown eyes shone. "In our exile...all that we had, we had to build unaided, alone. We are in exile no longer, alone no longer. Yet that flame of independence, kindled in exile, burns within us still. We will proudly show the world above what monsterkind, on its own, can still achieve. That is Dr. Alphys's dream for Alphyne Laboratories."

The queen turned to Dr. Alphys. "Have I done justice to your views, Doctor?"

The little scientist nodded vigorously. "Oh, you have, y-your majesty. You said it all m-much better than I could. Thank you."

 _No wonder Toriel is their leader,_ Stephen had to marvel. _They're in awe of her._

"So, Stephen," continued Dr. Alphys. "Now that you know what we're trying to do, l-let's talk about what you've done." She tapped her copy of Stephen's resume and peered at it through her round spectacles. "I w-want to ask about your education first. Bachelor of Science in Chemistry, Highlands College, 2007…D-did you study anything else in college?"

"No, that was my only major."

With a quiet vocalization Frisk signaled his intent to ask a question. Once again his mother translated his signs.

"My child asks whether you considered trying to get an advanced degree," Toriel said.

Stephen cursed inwardly. _How does this kid know about these things?_ He opened his mouth, shaping a white lie in his mind, but instead he found himself saying, "Um—yes, I admit that I did. After I graduated I applied to the Ph.D. chemistry program at Gilman University—that's the closest graduate school to here. They didn't accept me."

Undyne leaned towards him, a fiery gleam in her yellow eye. "Sorry for butting in, Alphy, but I gotta know, Steve: did you try again?"

"Er, no, I admit."

"You didn't?" Undyne's fangs glinted in the light. "Why not? Didn't you _want_ to get a better education?"

"Well, yes, of course."

"So why didn't you apply again? And again if you had to? _Make_ them see your passion for chemistry?"

"I—" This was starting to get bad. Stephen's blood was loud in his ears. "I felt that the results would not have changed with future attempts."

"Okay, then wasn't there some place else you could try? I don't know too much about your human schools but one thing I _have_ learned is that you've got a ton of them. There had to have been somewhere else!"

"...Yes, there were. But after the rejection from Gilman I felt it was more prudent to try my luck on the job market."

"Damn, that sucks, having to settle like that. I'd have fought them hard if they'd turned me down when I knew I had the stuff, but..." Undyne shook her head and frowned. "Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. Anyway, Alphy, end of butting in. Get back to what you were gonna ask."

Dr. Alphys didn't look the least bit put out. "Thanks, Undyne." She smiled at her partner. "Okay, Steve, l-let's move on to your job experience. Looks like you've done qu-quite a few different things?"

The reminder of his capricious work history did not improve Stephen's tension. He tried to keep his breathing regulated. "Yes. I've worked in a number of different capacities. I've done some microbiological lab work as you can see, and I've gained some experience in electronics testing. But my primary focus has always been chemistry. Particularly analytical chemistry. Two years' experience with GC-MS at a environmental testing lab, a year and a half of experience in metals analysis with atomic emission spectroscopy. I had one job where we did gas- _solid_ chromatography on MAPP gas formulations—that was an interesting one. You don't see GSC every day." Stephen relaxed a little. He was on safe, familiar ground with this line of talk. "On other jobs I've done UV-visible spectrophotometry, infrared spectroscopy, some potentiometric analysis with ion-specific electrodes."

"That's a pretty impressive list!" Dr. Alphys was actually wagging her tail. "I've only _read_ about a lot of these so far. There's so many d-different instruments I've been wanting to get my paws on and work with for so long."

"Really? I have to ask, Dr. Alphys, how could you have learned about instrumental analysis while buried under a mountain?"

"Oh!" Dr. Alphys beamed. "You'd b-be surprised what we could find in the trash that would get washed d-down to us. I've scavenged a lot of soaked b-but still readable textbooks. Including _Principals of Instrumental Analysis_ by D-Douglas Skoog, I'll have you know." She saw how Stephen's face lit up at the mention of Skoog, and clapped her paws together. "You know it! That's so cool!"

Toriel was smiling as well, but then her smile faded into a serious expression as she addressed Stephen. "Your breadth of experience does seem impressive, Stephen, but I must ask for clarification of a detail from your resume: the first two jobs you have listed appear to span more than one year in duration, but in all subsequent entries but one, you list only a single year. What is the explanation?"

Stephen felt a cold, hard knot in his chest. "Many of those jobs were contracts of limited length." _"Contracts",_ Stephen repeated to himself, shading the word with disgust. _If you were honest you'd just admit you were a temp._

"May I ask, how limited?" Toriel asked.

"Ah. Well...they ranged in length from about nine months down to, um, two or less."

Undyne was on alert again. "Gotta ask another obvious question here, Steve. I've been looking over Alphy's shoulder at your resume here, and the last job on it that says anything about chemistry was, like, five years ago. What happened?"

The knot in Stephen's chest grew colder. Breathing was painful. "After the end of my, um, my last chemical laboratory assignment, I was, uh, not able to find another position in the chemical field. I was, uh, compelled to look elsewhere."

"Okay, so you have to take some other kind of job for a while, I get it, but after that? Did you try to get back into a chem lab?"

 _Lie. Lie, damn you!_ But Stephen looked into Undyne's face and his resolve crumbled. "...no, I never did."

"Why not?"

"I—I don't know."

"Aw, jeez, Steve...I hear the way you talk about all that chem work you did. That's where your _heart_ is! How could you just walk away from it like that?"

 _How indeed, Stephen?_

 _...I am done._

If it had been anyone else across the table from him, Stephen might have been able to play the charade out to the end. It was one thing to stutter and equivocate and improvise bullshit answers for some manager or HR drone. But to play that game with Dr. Alphys? With Undyne? With _Toriel?_ Bile rose in his throat at the very thought. Rather than answer the last question Stephen stood up.

"Dr. Alphys...Undyne...Queen Toriel...Ambassador Frisk. I thank you all for your patience with me; you've been very welcoming and accommodating. But I fear that I've been wasting your time. Clearly I am not qualified for the work that you wish me to do. I recommend that you look for a better educated candidate with a more reliable work history. Really, I'm just a dabbler." His eyes were burning now and he could no longer keep the quaver out of his voice; he needed to finish this quickly. Every muscle in his body was telling him to run but he _had_ to do this properly, and salvage whatever dignity he could. "Toriel, thank you for your hospitality. Monsterkind is fortunate to have you to guide them. Ambassador Frisk, I will honor your wish and tell everyone I know that the monsters are kind and friendly. Dr. Alphys, I wish you luck with your work and I hope you succeed in your dream. And Undyne…" He tried to meet her eye but had to settle for focusing on her eyepatch instead. "...you're right. It _is_ tough in the lab. I'm sorry I didn't measure up."

"Wait a sec, Steve-" Undyne said, starting up from her chair. Dr. Alphys stared at him in shock. Frisk's eyes widened in alarm and they turned to Toriel, signing rapidly.

"Stephen, please—" Toriel also stood up, stretching out her paws in appeal. But he was already halfway towards the door, towards freedom. "Have a good afternoon," Stephen finished lamely, then he fled Alphyne Laboratories at his fastest walking pace.

By the time he was unlocking his Civic his eyes were starting to well up. He threw himself into the driver's seat and slammed the door. As he was starting the car Undyne burst out of the front door.

"Steve, you got the wrong—" he heard her shout, but in another few moments he was back on Mountain Haven Road and heading northward as fast as he dared, leaving Ebottsville behind.

As soon as the town disappeared from his rear view mirror he pulled over. Only once his grief and his shame had exhausted his tears could he resume his journey.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

 **Mercy That is Quick in Us**

His phone buzzed for the first time when he was about ten minutes from home. Someone was trying to text him from a number he didn't recognize. He deleted the notification without reading it.

The second buzz came when he was in line at the neighborhood grocery store five blocks from his apartment. Another text, from a different unfamiliar number. Again he deleted the notification.

The third buzz came when he was in the middle of uncorking the bottle he'd just purchased. Another text from the same number as the second. This notification he read: "are you there steve" is all it said. He deleted it.

The fourth buzz came after he'd just drained his first tumbler. It was a phone call this time, from Evelyn. The warmth of the wine was still flowing through him; he could handle Evelyn. "Hey," he answered.

"Steve!" It was Evelyn's cheerful voice. "I wasn't sure you be free yet. Is the interview already over?"

"Um...yeah, I guess it is."

"So, how'd it go?"

"Oh, well, you know…" Stephen started to pour himself a second helping. "It didn't go great, Evie, but that's OK. I ended it early. They've got a pretty mickey mouse outfit there anyway, don't really have a plan for what they're doing, so it wasn't a good opportunity anyway, besides—"

"Steve." All hint of cheerfulness had vanished from Evelyn's voice. "How much have you had?"

"What?"

"Don't bullshit me, Steve. You're no fucking good at it. You only call me 'Evie' when you've been drinking. How much?"

"Just one glass of red wine, _Evelyn_ , that's all, I'm not incapacitated or anything—" He began to raise the tumbler to his lips.

"Don't touch another goddamn drop. I'm coming over."

"Evelyn, really you don't have to—"

"The fuck I don't. I'll be there in twenty minutes. _Not another fucking drop._ " The connection dropped.

Stephen breathed in the vinegarish smell of the cheap wine from the tumbler he still held. He'd been wanting to pound it down but now the sickish odor put him off the idea. He set the tumbler down and slumped in his chair, waiting for Evelyn's knock.

Seventeen minutes later he opened the door and looked straight into Evelyn's face. She hadn't bothered with her usual makeup and her hair was an unbrushed tangle. Her countenance looked more sad than angry, but her eyes blazed. "You're a fucking moron," she said in a hard but quiet voice.

Words of defense came to Stephen's mind but he said none of them. "Won't you come inside?" he asked. Evelyn nodded and went to the kitchen table where he had been sitting. Picking up the bottle that rested there she held it up to the light. "Sutter Home? Christ, Steve, if you're gonna get wasted, at least drink something that doesn't taste like one of your chemistry experiments." Grabbing the bottle and tumbler she emptied both into the sink, and Stephen watched sadly as the fluid gurgled down the drain. Evelyn hurled the empty bottle into the trashcan, sat down and glared at him.

"Why'd you do it?" she asked.

Stephen sank into his seat. "Because they were nice."

"I don't get it."

"They were nice, and they were so happy to meet me and welcome me to their community, and Toriel and Ambassador Frisk were there and bowed to me—"

"Jesus, Steve…"

"—and then I get to tell all these nice monsters and their flippin' _queen_ that I'm a fuckup who can't hold a job and hasn't had a real one in years anyway. I let them down, Evelyn. I let them all down and I let all of _us_ down too." He buried his face in his hands.

"Aw, Steve." Evelyn's voice softened. "I gotta admit, that sounds a lot more stressful than you could've expected. I'm sorry you had to go through all that. But dammit Steve, getting fucked up on hobo wine isn't going to help now, is it? You're just gonna wake up tomorrow feeling like shit and wanting to drink more. You're a smart guy, Steve, why can't you be smart about this?"

Stephen said nothing for a minute. "Been a good while since you've done something like this for me, Evelyn," he said at last.

"Huh? Since I've done what?"

Stephen's lips twitched in a parody of a smile. "You used to be trying to get me to stop drinking all the time. You'd yell at me and throw my booze away, and then maybe you'd calm down a bit and try to reason with me. And there was that one time you thought you could get me to go to AA meetings if you came along with me the first couple times. Then a few years ago all that just...stopped. I always wondered why."

Evelyn's shoulders sagged. "You wanna know the truth? I gave up on you."

A chill went through Stephen. "What?"

"I gave up on you. Well, not on _you_ , exactly. But on this part of you." Evelyn sighed. "Steve...after everything that happened between us at school, and the fact that you were there for me the whole time when I came out to everyone and my parents cut me off and all the rest of that shit...you were my friend for life. But then you started drinking more and more, and screwing up at work more and more, and I thought maybe I could stop you. Maybe _I_ could reach you. I was the love of your life once, right? I thought you'd listen to _me._ But you didn't."

The chill became a icy wave washing over him and through him. "Evelyn, I'm sorry—"

"I'm not finished. I've had more than my share of crap to deal with, Steve, as you should damn well know. I was running out of energy to try fixing _your_ shit on top of all that." Evelyn's words were angry but her voice was quiet and regretful. "I guess...maybe a better friend would have, I dunno, _intervened_ somehow. At least stopped, what's the word, 'enabling'? I could've told you I'd end our relationship if you didn't clean yourself the fuck up. But, when it came down to it…" Evelyn bit her lower lip. "I just couldn't handle the idea that I might never see you again. I couldn't threaten you with that."

Stephen could feel tears starting up again in his eyes.

"So I decided to just leave it alone," Evelyn went on. "I figured, I'd still be your friend if you were sick with cancer or had a stroke or something like that, so I could still be your friend if you're sick with this. Anyway...you're not as bad as some. It's not like you're blitzed every time I see you or call you. I figured, as long as I didn't have to be around when you were doing it, I could live with you making the stupid decision to get trashed every now and then."

"Except this time."

" _Because I was stupid enough to hope it'd be different this time!"_ Evelyn's eyes blazed again. "Fucking hell, Steve...I thought that maybe after you'd _finally_ gotten that shit with your parents out of the way and had your four months of goofing off in Oregon you'd have...I dunno, gotten it out of your system or something. And I thought...maybe it'd be different with the job this time too. You were always complaining about how you hated all the jobs you were applying to, how you missed having a challenge. Well, isn't working in a lab run by monsters interesting and challenging enough?" Evelyn's voice caught and without thinking she grabbed one of Steve's hands in both of hers. "Wasn't even that enough to wake you up, Steve? Wasn't that enough to stop you from running away?"

"I didn't run away. They didn't want me."

"They told you this?"

"Uh…"

"Steve. They _didn't_ tell you, did they?"

"Not in words, no! But I could tell how disappointed they were. Undyne kept saying things about 'passion' and 'heart' and I could tell she didn't think I had any of those qualities. And you should have seen the way Toriel looked at me…"

Evelyn rubbed her temples. "God, Steve. You just don't change, do you?"

"I'm...I'm sorry." He pushed himself up, walked to the nearest kitchen counter, and collapsed over it, leaning heavily on his arms with his back to the room. _I've really done it this time. I didn't just blow the interview, I've lost my best friend, too. She must be so disgusted with me right now…_

Stephen heard a phone vibrate, then the quiet sounds of tapping and messages being exchanged, and finally the noise of Evelyn's pushing her chair back and getting to her feet. _It must have been something important,_ thought Stephen dully. _And now she's going to tell me she has to leave and that maybe she won't be visiting again any time soon._

"Steve," said Evelyn from behind him, her voice flat.

 _Here it comes._ Stephen turned about and looked at his old friend. He'd expected to see anger, or revulsion, or sadness, but he saw none of these things in Evelyn. Her face was neutral, her eyes were closed, and she was breathing steadily, as if to calm herself. _She's about to tell me something really bad…_ came the fugitive thought. Then she opened her eyes and, to Stephen's surprise, she was smiling—a gentle, tentative smile, but still a smile.

"Steve, give me a hug."

He tottered forward into Evelyn's embrace. They stood there, hugging each other, for many long moments.

"You're still a fucking moron, Steve," Evelyn said at last, "and if I had any brains I'd just give up on you again, completely this time, and walk out of here. But instead I'm determined to help you. Just this once."

"But Evelyn, why?"

"Maybe it's another foolish hope or a vague hunch but I think you still might be able to rescue this. If those monsters are as nice as you say they are, Steve, then just maybe they'll give you a second chance. But you'll have to _try_. And if they offer you that chance for fuck's sake _jump_ at it. Don't you _want_ to work for them?"

"Of course I do!"

"Then talk to them again." Evelyn disengaged herself from the hug and started for the front door, Stephen following. "I really do have to get back to drawing, Steve, so it's goodbye for now."

"Goodbye, Evelyn. Thanks for your...tremendous patience with me."

"I've had a lot of practice learning to put up with bullshit since coming out. I think I can put up with yours for a little while longer at least. But you have to promise me a few things. First: promise me you'll talk to _someone_ professional about your drinking. A support group, a shrink, I don't care what. But I'm not going to hold your hand this time; you'll have to do this by yourself. _And_ you have to report back to me on what you did. And don't think you can make up some bullshit story to snow me because you're a rotten liar and I can always tell."

"OK, I promise."

"Second: promise me you'll stay off the booze till at least the end of tomorrow."

"I promise."

"Third: stop ignoring your damn phone messages, huh?"

Stephen looked past Evelyn to where his phone lay on the kitchen table.

"How'd you know I was ignoring them?"

"Because I've _read_ them, you dope."

"What?! How'd you unlock my phone?"

"Steve, you've used the first four digits of Avogadro's Number as your phone PIN on every phone you've ever had, because you're that big and predictable a nerd."

"Hmph. Thanks a lot, Evelyn, you're a big help."

She actually winked. "I've been more helpful than you know. Check your phone and you'll see." Evelyn waved a farewell. "I'll be checking up on you tomorrow to see how much progress you've made. Bye!" She disappeared down the hall.

Stephen went back to the kitchen to retrieve his phone. When he unlocked it he saw that it was open to the text messaging app.

[760-555-3226]

Stephen, this is Toriel

I hope you'll forgive me for this intrusion

Please contact me when you can

[760-555-2368]

hey steve its undyne

are you there steve

i'm really sorry about scaring you off

sometimes i forget im not a guard captain breaking in recruits any more

i didnt want to make you feel bad

[ _Don't worry about it Undyne :)_ ]

we want you to come back

alphy and me

give us another chance

[ _I'd be glad to!_ ]

aw that's great

tomorrow same time ok for you?

[ _Tomorrow at ten? I'll be there_ ]

just told alphy shes squeeing

cya tomorrow steve


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

 **Red Barchetta**

The next day dawned as sunny and bright as yesterday had been, and despite himself Stephen was in an expansive mood, rolling down the window of his hatchback and inhaling the crisp mountain air as he headed back up the winding road towards Ebottsville. A light rain the night before had cleared the haze and the wildflowers alongside the highway glowed under the morning sunshine.

Stephen felt a prickle of anxiety about the upcoming second interview for which Evelyn had slyly volunteered him, but no more than a prickle. After Evelyn had left his apartment Stephen had finally responded to Toriel's text, apologizing for his precipitant departure, but Toriel had been even more contrite. "I regret that we conveyed the impression that you would be rejected out of hand because you have a less than immaculate record," Toriel had said. "Are you open to giving us a chance to correct that impression?" She was delighted when he informed her that he (after a fashion) had already informed Undyne that he was returning to Alphyne Laboratories the next day. _Maybe Evelyn is right,_ Stephen permitted himself to hope.

He arrived in Ebottsville with a half-hour to spare before his appointment, so he parked again at the gas station with the intention of buying a snack to pass the time. He was mildly surprised to see another vehicle was there, a bright-red Mazda Miata sporting an incongruously large after-market trunk spoiler. As he stepped out of his Civic Stephen saw another oddity, something that must have escaped his notice the day before: a little food-service shack a couple dozen yards down the road from the filling station, just big enough to hold a spinning hot dog rotisserie and a folding chair. Sacked out in the chair, asleep and faintly snoring, was a familiar skeleton dressed in a blue hoodie. Stephen chuckled inwardly and turned away to head for the convenience store when he heard the skeleton's amused voice.

"Hey again, new-ish guy. C'mere, chat a bit."

Stephen whipped round. Sans was sitting upright in his chair, as bright and alert as if he'd never been napping; he chuckled at Stephen's surprise.

"Little trick I learned when I was working as a sentry down Underground." He waved Stephen over with one bony hand. "Wanna buy a hot dog?"

"Actually...yes." Stephen went to the counter, inspecting the rotisserie and fumbling for his wallet. "They look all right…"

"Yeah, they're okay with enough ketchup on them. I kinda miss the dogs I used to sell, but turns out it's hard to find a lot of water sausage growing halfway up a mountain. Anyway, that'll be thirty gold pieces."

Stephen stared. "What?"

Sans winked at him, an effect baffling to see on a skull. _Just how do monsters' bodies even work?_ Stephen found himself thinking. "Just kidding ya, buddy. Buck and a half." Stephen felt about in his pockets for bills and coins while Sans dug underneath the counter for a bun and some condiments. He plonked down a ketchup bottle only to notice it was empty. "Oh. Guess I shouldn't be dipping into this stuff so often. It's okay, though, my brother will be back with more in a minute."

"It's okay, I can do without. So I finally get to meet your brother!" A light bulb went off. "So that's _his_ Mazda I'm parked next to."

"Yeah. Cool wheels aren't they? He's so proud of that car."

"And he can drive it? I mean...legally?"

"Sure thing. Papyrus worked real hard to get his license. He studied the rules for hours and he put in a ton of practice. Passed the tests the first time." Sans's smile was warm and broad. "That's my brother for you. _I_ couldn't have stuck at that. Guess you could say my brother's the one who got all the _drive_ in the family."

Stephen snorted. "That was better than yesterday's."

"I try, Steve, I try."

Stephen was savoring his first bite of Sans's hot dog—thunderingly mediocre, but food was food—when a loud cry from the direction of the convenience store interrupted his chewing.

"SANS!" said the voice, a reedy tenor that shouting made even reedier. "THE HUMAN WHO RUNS THE CONVENIENCE STORE SAYS THAT—WOWIE! ANOTHER CAR! SANS! THERE MUST BE A FELLOW MOTORIST NEARBY! I MUST FIND THEM AND SHARE WITH THEM OUR LOVE OF DRIVING!" The source of the voice was the gangly, red-scarf-wearing skeleton Stephen had seen in that first photograph and in many others subsequently. He wore blue cargo shorts and a T-shirt, as well as ]boots and gloves as red as his scarf.

Sans rose from his chair. "There's my brother! Let's go meet him."

As they went over to him, Papyrus's attention was locked onto Stephen's Civic; he was walking around it and inspecting the dents and scratches. "This car has sustained some damage in its life," Papyrus mused, "and hasn't been adequately repaired. Perhaps its owner will accept my help in restoring their vehicle to pristine condition!" Stephen flushed with embarrassment..

"'Sup, bro," said Sans when he drew near.

"Ah, Sans!" Then Papyrus all at once took notice of Stephen and his mouth gaped. "A NEW HUMAN! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WELCOME YOU, NEW HUMAN, TO EBOTTSVILLE! Or," he continued with a huge grin as he flung his arm out in a dramatic gesture to encompass the entire town, "as I like to think of it, New New Home!"

"Actually, bro," Sans said, sticking both his hands in his pockets and grinning, "Steve here's visited once already."

"OH!" Papyrus kept his smile but a tinge of disappointment colored the stentorian voice. "And I wasn't here to welcome you! My newfound love of driving on the open road has been taking me away from home more and more often! Perhaps I've missed MANY opportunities to greet new humans!"

"'Sok, bro, I've been covering it. You haven't missed meeting anyone new till yesterday."

"I am GLAD to hear it!" Papyrus beamed again. "What is your name, new human?"

"Stephen Corey," the new human replied, offering his hand. Papyrus accepted with an enthusiastic shake.

"Then...is this _your_ car?" the skeleton asked, waving toward the Civic, eagerness widening his grin.

"Er, yes, yes it is. It, um, does everything for me that a car needs to do."

"Do you like driving? Isn't driving just...amazing?" Papyrus's voice took on a beatific tone. "Sunlight on chrome...wind in our hair…"

"You haven't got any hair," Sans reminded.

"Sans!" Papyrus rounded on his brother indignantly. "You're spoiling our moment of bonding!"

A warm-hearted smile crept over Stephen's face. He himself had always tended to think of driving as a regrettable but necessary chore, but it occurred to him that to Papyrus, after a life trapped Underground, driving must have felt as miraculous as freedom itself. "Yeah, driving can be pretty fun, Papyrus, you're right."

"We should go out driving together!" Papyrus again gestured toward Stephen's car. "But first I, the great Papyrus, will help you restore your car to a condition fitting—"

"Hey, bro," Sans again interjected, "I'm sure Steve would love to work on his car with you but he's got a job interview to get to."

"Oh!" Papyrus halted his exhortation and shook Stephen's hand again. "In that case, Stephen, I shall send you on your way! Where's the job?"

"Um, here in town actually. I'm hoping to work for Alphyne Labs."

Papyrus's eyesockets bugged wider open. "You mean...you'll be _working_ here? In New New Home? With my best friend Undyne?" Before Stephen could react Papyrus wrapped his skeletal arms around him in a convivial hug. He had barely enough presence of mind to respond in kind, resting his arms gingerly around Papyrus's ribcage. _Well. Uh. Wasn't expecting that. This feels...weird._

"We'll be practically...neighbors!" Papyrus said.

"...thanks…"

"Better let your new neighbor get on his way, bro," Sans said.

"Of course!" Papyrus let Stephen go and shook hands again. "Best of luck, new friend!"

"I really appreciate that, Papyrus. It's good to meet you at last. Sans has been talking you up a bit."

"Why, Sans!" Papyrus gave his brother an affectionate look. "That was very nice of you!"

"Anything for you, Pappy," replied Sans with a wide smile. "Oh, did you get my ketchup?"

"Yes, of course!" Papyrus retrieved a small paper bag from a pocket of his shorts and handed it to his brother. "But the shop owner says that's his last bottle. You keep drinking up his stock, Sans!"

Sans looked in the bag. "Where's the relish?"

Papyrus opened his mouth, then closed it. "Damn!" he said, then swung himself round to stomp back into the convenience store.

Sans watched him go, then turned to Stephen, offering his hand. "Good luck, Steve. Hope you get the job."

Stephen hesitated a second, then carefully shook Sans's hand. Nothing happened.

Sans winked. "Gotcha."

Stephen laughed. "Thanks for the hot dog, Sans."

Sans's grin widened. "Any time, buddy." Then his grin lessened and he spoke in a quieter tone. "And thanks for returning, Steve. I'm glad you came back after leaving in such a hurry yesterday."

"Wait, how do you know about that?"

"It's a small town, Steve, news travels fast." When Sans noticed Stephen's dubious expression his tone became more placating. "Oh, don't worry, we're not all swapping gossip about you. If you want to know the truth, I know because Tori told me the story."

"Er, do you mean, _Queen_ Tori—"

"Yep, Queen Tori. We're old friends and she wanted my advice." He walked back to his hot dog stand, Stephen following. "Advice about you, actually."

"Oh. Hm. What did you tell her?"

Sans resumed his seat and looked up at Stephen with an odd smile. "You're an okay guy, Steve, but I'm not gonna reveal _all_ my confidences to you."

"Ah. Well, that's fair enough."

"Don't sweat it, I'd be curious too. If it makes you feel any better, I can say this much." He popped open the fresh ketchup bottle and took a swig as he talked. "I told her that I knew what it's like to be, well, smart, really _good_ at something, but then something comes up in your life and.." He shrugged. "You just can't do it any more. Even if everyone's telling you you should."

Stephen nodded slowly. "Yes...that does happen."

Sans leaned back in his chair. "Anyway, you've wasted enough time jawing with me. See ya round, new-ish guy." Sans closed his eyesockets and in a few moments he was again gently snoring.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

 **Coffee, Confections and Confessions**

The second time Stephen reported to Alphyne Laboratories' front door, nobody answered on the intercom; instead, the front door opened to reveal Ambassador Frisk. They looked much the same as they did the day before, except that now the rugby shirt was striped with three colors (pink, purple, blue) and they were holding a pocket notepad with a red ballpoint clipped to it. Frisk smiled at Stephen, vocalized their pleasure at seeing him, and held up their pad for him to read. On it was printed in capital letters, "WELCOME BACK STEPHEN! ALPHYS AND UNDYNE WILL BE READY FOR YOU SHORTLY".

"Thank you, Ambassador," Stephen replied, entering the foyer. "It's a pleasure to be back."

Frisk nodded happily and, with remarkable and well-practiced swiftness, wrote out in reply, "YOU CAN CALL ME FRISK".

"All right, Frisk. Is the queen—uh, that is to say, is Toriel gracing us with her—"

Frisk giggled a little and wrote out, "DON'T BE SO NERVOUS! MOM IS OUT GETTING US SOME FOOD".

"Sorry, Frisk. Your mother is just a little bit...imposing, in person."

Frisk looked pensive for a moment, then wrote out, "IF YOU STILL FEEL NERVOUS AROUND MOM TELL HER A DAD JOKE".

"What? A dad joke? Like, a pun?" Stephen asked. Frisk nodded and vocalized their assent. Stephen responded with a cracked laugh. "Really? I don't know, Frisk, I'm terrible at those."

"THE WORSE THE BETTER".

At that moment the door from the foyer to the laboratory opened partway and a yellow-orange, bespectacled head popped round the doorjamb. When she saw Stephen with Frisk she beamed. "Oh, good, you're here!" she said. "S-sorry Undyne and me couldn't greet you right away, b-but we got some stuff delivered to us early and w-we had to figure out where to put it. Come in, come in!" She waved them into the lab. Frisk and Stephen followed her inside.

The room they entered was a cavernous space with fluorescent lamps lining the ceiling and rows of black-topped lab benches, looking much like every other lab Stephen had ever been in. Old habits directed his eyes around the room to locate the doors, the sinks, the fume hoods, the fire extinguishers, the safety equipment: whoever had commissioned the construction of the lab—presumably Dr. Alphys—had done their homework well. Shelves on two walls were stacked with gear, equipment and books, some sorted, some not, a lot of musty and stained and scratched, making the lab feel and smell a little like the warehouse of a surplus store. There were a couple of PCs set up on one of the benches, one of them surrounded by discarded ramen containers and and a selection of action figurines. Dr. Alphys was busy adjusting the position of a newly arrived steel shelf as Stephen and Frisk entered; a few seconds later Undyne barged into view through a door at the back that had been wedged open. Slung casually over one shoulder was the steel and aluminum benchtop of a small optical table, a foot thick, six feet long and four feet wide; on her other shoulder she carried a heavy box that presumably held the table's legs.

"Hey, Alphy!" Undyne shouted. "This is the last one left, where do you want it?"

Dr. Alphys finished adjusting her shelf and studied Undyne's load for a second. "That's an optical table. It'll have to go in the b-basement."

"Thanks Alphy." She waved her head toward Frisk and Alphy. "Hey, punks! So you came back, Steve! Be right with ya." She disappeared into a stairwell, growling a little as she strove to maneuver her burden, and Stephen looked in astonishment at Dr. Alphys when she had gone.

"That table has got to weigh, like, five hundred pounds!" Stephen exclaimed.

Dr. Alphys grinned proudly. "I know, isn't she _amazing?_ She's been so much help now that we're starting to get in b-bigger stuff. And when she puts anything she's carrying down, she's so _precise_ and _gentle_...I c-can tell her exactly where it needs to go and she'll put it right _there._ " Dr. Alphys clasped her paws with a dreamy sigh, and Stephen could practically see the stars in her eyes. Then she seemed to realize where she was. "Oh! um...heh. W-when Undyne gets b-back we'll start."

Frisk looked at Dr. Alphys, uttering an interrogative sound and making a quick sign. "Oh! That's right! I f-forgot, first Toriel is c-coming back with some coffee and p-pastries for all of us. Then we can start t-talking."

Undyne came back from the basement, stretching her arms and back. "You'll have to tell me later how it's supposed to go together, Alphy," she called out as she emerged and went over to Dr. Alphys, sparing a few moments to swoop down and scoop her up for a quick kiss. "Hey there, sexy nerd," Undyne growled.

Dr. Alphys giggled and glanced in Stephen's direction. "Undyne...m-maybe not in front of guests…"

Undyne snorted in friendly derision. "Hah! Nothing he wouldn't see in his first day of work anyway." She straightened up anyway and advanced toward Frisk and Stephen, taking his hand in a crushing handshake. "Glad to have ya back. Look, uh...no hard feelings, huh?"

"Undyne, there never were."

"Thanks, Steve," she said, smiling her still somewhat disconcerting smile. Then she reached down to pick up Frisk and hoist them up to eye level with her. "How you doin' champ?" Frisk signed an answer. "Aw, sorry, Frisk, I haven't picked up your language yet. I'll just guess that you're telling me you're doing great and you love your bestie Undyne, huh?" Frisk laughed and nodded.

At that moment Toriel's furry head appeared at the doorway to the foyer. "I have coffee and a dozen donuts, friends," she called out. Her face lit up when she noticed Stephen among the group. "Stephen! You're here. Do you all want to gather in the conference room again?"

Undyne scoffed. "That cold, boring-ass place? Four white walls, a white table and some whiteboards." She gently set Frisk back to the floor and clapped her hands. "We need to spruce that room up. Maybe put an aquarium in it or something. Let's eat in the breakroom."

Toriel came into the lab, carrying a box of donuts and a thermos, and Frisk ran to her side. They followed Undyne and Alphys as they walked the length of the lab, Stephen close behind, into a side room that was furnished with a sink, a fridge, a futon (still folded out into a bed), a Naugahyde couch in an eyestrain-inducing shade of fuschia pink, yet another PC with yet more figurines and empty noodle bowls scattered around it, a square table and two folding chairs. Alphys darted forward with a guilty laugh to fold the futon back up for sitting. "Heh, s-sorry! Sometimes Undyne and I, um, r-rest in here."

Frisk giggled. Toriel fixed eyes on them. "Do not be rude, my child!" she admonished, but Stephen could hear the suppressed laughter in her voice. She set the thermos and donut box on the table. Stephen recognized the same smiling, fanged, five-eyed face from the Danish he'd bought— _wait, I never did eat that, did I?—_ and the same motto, "By Spiders, For Spiders!"

"Who makes these, Toriel?" Stephen asked.

"The monsters' best baker, Muffet," At this Frisk tugged her sleeve and signed something that prompted a bleat of laughter. "Oh, my child, you are too kind. But I am only an amateur. In any case, Stephen, you may meet Muffet soon, should you be employed here, as a client. I believe that Dr. Alphys has worked on food chemistry in the past, have you not, Doctor?"

Dr. Alphys nodded. "We k-kinda had to, at the Royal Lab," she said. "Finding s-substitutes for ingredients once we were cut off from the Surface was one of the f-first concerns of the Lab when it was created."

Stephen poured himself a paper cup of coffee and selected a plain glazed donut. He took an experimental bite. The texture was a little odd, chewier than he was used to, but the flavor was excellent. "Well, Toriel…" began Stephen, cringing inwardly from what he was about to force himself to say, "you may tell Muffet that, even though I don't normally, uh…" _Oh God…_ "... _go_ nuts for donuts, I enjoy hers."

Dr. Alphys went slack-jawed. Undyne facepalmed, muttering, "Fucking hell, not another one." Frisk burst out with a delighted chuckle. Toriel's brown eyes went wide, and then she dissolved into helpless laughter, abandoning herself to the joke so thoroughly that Stephen found himself laughing with her.

"Oh, Stephen," Toriel finally said as she collected herself, "that was very clever."

 _Uh...it was?_ "Thank you, Toriel...I had an idea you might like it." He caught Frisk's eye, and Frisk winked back with a grin.

Undyne glared at Stephen. "I know what must've happened. You met Sans in town and he put you up to it, didn't he?"

"I _did_ meet Sans—he told me to say 'hi' to you and Dr. Alphys, by the way, I'd almost forgotten—but no, it wasn't his idea."

"Yeah, sure," Undyne replied, but she was smiling. The five of them munched their donuts and sipped their gas-station coffee for a few minutes in companionable silence.

Toriel interrupted it. "Perhaps we should now turn to business," she said, looking at Dr. Alphys.

"Uh, yes, your majesty," the scientist replied, hurriedly wiping some powdered sugar from the end of her snout. "S-so, Stephen, um, we know that you've had a somewhat, uh, checkered work history—"

"Yes," Stephen interrupted, squaring his shoulders and taking a deep breath before plunging into his confessional mode. "I think it's only fair that I lay it all out for you now rather than try to paper it over." He turned to Undyne. "Everything you implied about me, Undyne, is true. I gave up too easily on trying to get a better degree. I gave up on trying to find better jobs. I can tell you that I love science, I love working in the laboratory, and I'm capable of learning a lot of different things, but there's not much evidence I can give you on paper that I have that sort of... _passion_ in me."

Undyne frowned. "Hey, Steve, I know I must've seemed like I was just trying to cut you down, but that wasn't what I wanted to do. When I was captain of the Royal Guard, do you think I imagined that _everyone_ who came to me to join had to have all their shit together right from the start? I was willing to give anyone a chance, I mean, _anyone._ But I had to let 'em know from the start that I wasn't gonna hold anyone's hand."

"B-besides, Stephen," Dr. Alphys added, "after you left yesterday, I got in touch with a couple of your p-professional references. Everyone who contact me said you were a really bright guy who could pick up a lot of different skills. But they didn't say why they ended up letting you go."

Stephen's stomach lurched. But he was determined to be honest, even about this. "All of you should know...for some years now I've been struggling with drink. I lost good jobs for taking too many sick days because of drinking." He quailed from the look in Toriel's soft eyes. "I don't know how much you monsters might know about alcoholism…"

"We had drunks Underground, too," said Undyne. Stephen winced. "Okay, that was a bit harsh. Gotta be honest, it's not great news to hear. But…" Undyne screwed up her face in thought, scratching her cheek with one clawed hand. "I'm not changing my mind. _I'm_ still willing to take a chance on you. But you'd better promise to stay off the sauce." She brought her face closer to Stephen's smiling her most menacing smile. "You break your promise and come in loaded and I'm personally gonna kick your ass and throw you out of town."

"Undyne," Toriel put in, her voice mild. "I appreciate what you are trying to do, but there's no need to threaten Stephen." She turned to address Stephen, who compelled himself to look her in the face. But she did not look sad now. "There is still much for me to learn about human society, but I have already learned that alcoholism is an affliction among some of you. One for which you have devised methods of treatment, have you not?"

"Yes. One of my friends has made me promise her to enter into a treatment program and keep her up to date on my progress through it."

"That is good to hear. I must then insist, Stephen, that you also report your progress to us."

"I promise."

"Thanks you, Stephen," said Toriel with a smile that returned a measure of hope to Stephen's heart. "You have been very forthright with us. In return, I must be honest with you. We are laboring under great disadvantages." Toriel sighed. "We are not without means, and we still have access to some of the resources with which were able to survive in the Underground. But most humans still wish to keep their distance from us, and finding those willing to conduct business with us has been difficult. Furthermore, after centuries Underground, monsterkind is unused to the Surface. I am one of the very few monsters who has any memory of life before exile." Stephen could feel the intensity of Toriel's gaze upon him. "We need friends, Stephen. We need humans like you, who are not afraid of us."

 _Am I unafraid?_ Stephen asked himself. Toriel's _gravitas_ intimidated him, as did Undyne's ferocity, but did they or any of the other monsters he'd encountered _frighten_ him? He found himself thinking how strange he felt when his acquaintances back in the human world would shrink in disgust from the sight of a bug or a worm, when all he saw was another spark of life among many.

They all looked at him, expectantly: Dr. Alphys's eyes wide behind her glasses, Undyne's eye intent and gleaming, Toriel's brimming with concealed power, Frisk's full of warmth. The ambassador scribbled on their pad and pushed it towards Stephen. It read:

"WE'RE ALL HERE TO BUILD NEW LIVES. I THINK THAT'S WHY YOU'RE HERE, TOO."

Stephen nodded. "All right. Give me an official offer letter and a W-4, so I know everything's above board, and I'll sign them. I'm with you."


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

 **Mystic Rhythms**

"Mind if I get some music going on your workstation, Undyne?" Stephen had a tedious job ahead of him, sorting and cleaning items from a very miscellaneous collection of glassware in a donated box, and he needed the help.

Undyne was sitting at a nearby bench with a battered copy of Zumdahl's Introductory Chemistry in front of her and a spiral notebook, trying to work problems in scientific notation. After Stephen's first full day at the lab Undyne had complained that the nerds were now outnumbering her two to one and felt like she had to do something to catch up. She waved toward Stephen without looking up. "Go ahead, play whatever," she replied.

"Prog rock okay with you, Dr. Alphys?" Stephen asked. He logged onto Spotify and selected his favorite Yes album.

"Well, um...I d-don't know too much about it…" The little scientist looked up from her computer. "And you don't need to c-call me 'Doctor' all the time, Stephen. Makes me sound like I'm s-someone important."

"Aren't you?"

"N-not really, not any more." Alphys turned her attention back to her screen and her noodle bowl. Stephen glanced toward Undyne and saw that she was looking at Alphys in concern. Undyne met Stephen's eye for a moment, gave a little shrug, and went back to her studying.

Stephen cued up "Roundabout". At the sound of the opening guitar solo Alphys stopped eating and looked up again, and when the bass line kicked in she dropped her noodles, clapped her paws and squeed.

"I know this! This is from 'JoJo's Bizarre Adventure' first season!"

"Hm? What's that?" Stephen asked. "A TV show?"

Alphys stared at Stephen, shocked. "You've never heard of 'JoJo's Bizarre Adventure'?"

Undyne interrupted her homework to shout, "That's a cool one! 1890s England must have been the most exciting place to live ever."

Stephen shrugged. "Maybe I heard the name somewhere but I don't know anything about it."

"Oh," said Alphys, nonplussed. "Well, what anime have you seen?"

"Uh...some classmate of mine showed me Akira when I was in high school…that's about it, really."

Alphys gaped at Stephen as though he'd just admitted to running over a cat on his drive to work. Undyne laughed and went over to her girlfriend, throwing an arm around her. "It's no big deal, Alphy! I hadn't even heard of anime before you told me. We'll just have to catch Steve up."

"Uh, y-yeah, yeah!" said Alphys. "We have anime nights at our house, like, once or twice a week…"

"At least," Undyne interjected.

"...and of c-course you're welcome to join," Alphys continued.

"Yeah! We love having company over!" Undyne gave Stephen's arm a sharp but not unfriendly punch. "There's more to life than science, nerd! Don't you wanna learn some history?"

"...History?"

Alphys tittered nervously. "Sure! The history of, um, anime!" She fidgeted with her phone. A few seconds later Stephen's phone vibrated. A message had come in, from Alphys: "ill explain later".

"Well, enough chitchat," said Undyne, pecking a kiss on her lover's head and returning to her book. "Back to work."

They worked quietly for some while, Alphys tapping away at her computer, Undyne muttering and scribbling and occasionally cursing over significant figures, Stephen over the sink with an assortment of brushes, scrubbing and rinsing all the various bits of glassware, intoning the name of each piece reverently in his head as he withdrew it from the box. Claisen head...drying tube...Gooch crucible...a 25 mL beaker… Meanwhile Jon Anderson belted out lyrics in the background.

"What are you working on, Dr. Al—sorry, Alphys?" Stephen asked after some time.

"Trying to do some research online," she answered, pushing her chair back and rubbing her eyes. "I f-figure that our first goal, o-once we have enough supplies and equipment to d-do anything useful with, is to work on energy tech. I want Ebottsville to b-be able to supply itself."

"Oh, really? You want the monsters to live off the grid, huh?"

"If by that you m-mean, drawing as little as possible from human power sources, yes. Our town is still small and we d-don't need much for now, but that will change."

Stephen nodded. "I guess the queen is serious about wanting to be as self-sufficient as possible."

"She is. So I've b-been trying to research options online but it's so frustrating." Alphys sighed. "Can you imagine how excited I was when I got to the Surface and c-could finally use the Internet for the first time? We had our own Undernet but it was so tiny. I used to dream of all the scientific information I'd be able to read…"

"All the robot porn you'd be able to download…" called out Undyne.

"Sh-shush, Undyne," Alphys retorted, blushing furiously. "A-anyway, I've been finding some stuff that's useful to me, but there's so much that I want to read but can't. Look." Stephen went over to her workstation and watched as she followed a link to an article entitled "Conducting Polymer-Based Organic Solar Cells". "I've been trying to look into organic solar cells but most of the time when I find an interesting-looking paper, this happens." She clicked on "Full Text" and was greeted with the warning, "Your current credentials do not allow retrieval of the full text," and a demand for either a subscription ID or for $40. "We just d-don't have the budget yet for all these subscriptions, Stephen."

Stephen chuckled. "Hardly anybody does, Alphys. However, you're in luck. Do you have a VPN client on your machine there?"

"Um...not that I know of…"

"It's OK, I'll get one set up for you. Mind if I borrow your seat?" Alphys yielded her chair to Stephen. As he opened a new browser tab and typed away he explained, "About two years ago I bribed an administrator for the Highlands College libraries to allow me access to their virtual private network. Now I can access library resources off-campus, as though I were on staff there."

"You b-bribed someone?"

"Well, sort of. Actually it was a chance opportunity. Martin—that was the guy's name—had gotten acquainted when I was an undergrad and he knew I was good with science. Then his son Gabriel, who was a chem major at Highlands, got into academic trouble and my old chum contacted me out of the blue and begged me to help the kid and save him from getting thrown out of college. So I did. My price was getting library access."

Undyne had taken notice of the turn of conversation, lost interest in her reading and came over to watch Stephen at work. "You're a sneaky one, Steve!" she declared, thumping him on the back. "What happened, you do this guy's kid's homework for him?"

"...Kinda?" Stephen, embarrassed, rubbed a hand through his hair. "Mostly I tried to keep my help to tutoring and trying to prepare him for final exams, but he had this one particular advanced organic chemistry class he was going to get an 'F' in if he didn't finish a big final project, coming up with a natural product synthesis. There was a week left and the kid hadn't even begun work on it. So...I sort of did it for him. The first draft, anyway, and I did all the literature searches for him."

"B-but, Stephen," Alphys ventured, "don't you think that was wrong? If h-he couldn't handle the material, then he shouldn't have passed…"

"He could have handled the material! You've got the wrong idea. Gabe was good at chemistry. But he got into a torrid relationship, ended up blowing off a lot of classwork because he was head over heels with this guy he should've stayed away from, and then it ended in a messy breakup at the worst possible time of the school year." Stephen sighed. "I guess it was dishonest. But I didn't want a smart kid's life to be fucked just because he'd fallen in love." Stephen smiled a little. "I guess my friend Evelyn is right about me; I am a soppy romantic. I felt so sorry for that kid, I didn't care about the rules...and I got to feel like a chemist again, for a week."

"Did you get away with it?" Undyne asked.

"Yeah. With my last-minute help Gabe was able to get away with academic probation and eventually he got over his ex-boyfriend and started getting good grades again. He's at UCSD now for his doctorate, if I'm remembering correctly." Stephen finished his setup work. "Right, Alphys. You're logged into the VPN now, as you can see here...now, if you go back to that journal article…" He tried "Full Text" again and was rewarded with the entirety of "Conducting Polymer-Based Organic Solar Cells". He got to his feet and offered the chair back to Alphys. "There you go! Read to your heart's content."

"Oh my god…" Alphys plopped herself down in her chair and scrolled through the article. "And I can read any scientific article online this way?"

"Not any. But Highlands pays for a lot of subscriptions so you should be able to read most major periodicals."

"Thank you, Stephen, thank you!" Alphys whirled her chair around so she could wrap her arms around Stephen's legs in an awkward hug.

Undyne pretended to gag. "Geeks bonding, yecch."

"You'd better be careful, Undyne," joked Stephen as Alphys turned back to her computer and started an eager search for more articles. "Once your girlfriend gets hooked on reading journal articles you might not ever see her again."

"Pfft. Don't worry, I know what she's like when she's nerding out on something, but she always comes to bed when called." She leaned down and whispered something into Alphys's ear, prompting from the scientist a little squeak of pleasure and a plaintive, "But I'm busy…"

"Just teasing ya Alphy," said Undyne with a kiss. "We'll save it for later." She resumed her seat and Alphys got back to chasing through periodicals. Stephen washed a few more pieces of labware but then curiosity got the better of him and he stopped to look over Alphys's shoulder at what topic she was pursuing.

"Still on organic solar cells?" he asked.

"Yeah. With the climate here I think they might offer us the b-best chance to supply ourselves with power using devices that can be built with relatively simple equipment."

"You sure? I don't know too much about this field but I've never heard that efficiencies were very good compared to silicon."

Alphys looked over her shoulder at Stephen and her eyes sparkled behind the round lenses. "I have an idea or two for improving them."

"How'd you generate power when you were Underground? You said something about a 'core'..."

"The CORE. A geothermal generator, the creation of my p-predecessor, Dr. W. D. Gaster. Before him, the Underground had no central source of power." Alphys shook her head sadly. "I never met him. He was v-very private and only worked with a few associates. And they all d-disappeared in the accident that k-killed Dr. Gaster...there was no Royal Scientist for many years until K-King Asgore found me and thought I c-could take Dr. Gaster's p-place. As if I c-could." Alphys choked out a short, mirthless laugh. "I n-never learned how the CORE worked, Stephen. I c-couldn't even decipher Dr. Gaster's notes. The best I could do with the CORE was m-maintain it."

Stephen raised an eyebrow. "I don't get it, Alphys. Geothermal electric plants aren't exactly a big mystery. Most of them are just steam turbines, aren't they?"

"Um…" Alphys's eyes flicked back and forth from Stephen's face to the ground and back. "It's been s-something I've been, uh, reluctant to b-bring up because you're a human, a-and humans don't b-believe in...well…" Alphys finally looked him squarely in the face. "Stephen, the CORE wasn't an electrical generator. It d-didn't manipulate electrons...it manipulated magic."

"Magic. Did you just say 'magic'."

"Yes."

"Magic?!"

"Yes."

"...Uh."


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

 **A Well-Aimed Spear**

The conversation died for a while after that. Stephen returned to cleaning glassware in silence, apologetically informing Alphys that he needed "some space to think" when she attempted once to interrupt his reverie. Rebuffed, Alphys went back to her computer for more research and pot noodles. Undyne said that she needed to take a break from nerd stuff with some actual, physical labor, and she disappeared into the basement, from which Stephen imagined he could dimly hear the occasional thump, bang, and snarl.

Somewhat more than an hour later she reappeared, smelling more fishy than usual and smudged with dirt and grease, but her smile was broad and her mood jaunty. "Got that old air compressor working, Alphy," she yelled out as she came up the stairs. "Seems to work with the drill anyway. I'm gonna shower and then I'm gonna wanna eat something. You two wanna join me?"

"Of course!" Alphys called out after hastily swallowing her mouthful of noodles.

Stephen looked in the box of labware he'd been working through; most of the few pieces that remained were cracked or in fragments. "Yeah, I could use a break," he replied.

Undyne disappeared again, out the rear door this time. "Our house is just a short walk from here," Alphys explained as Stephen and she watched Undyne go. "She'll c-clean up and change and be back in maybe twenty minutes. You, um, you wanna look at what I've f-found so far?"

Stephen took a seat next to her, pushing aside some stacked, empty noodle containers with an inward sigh. Practically the first thing Alphys had done when he reported to work was lecture him on lab safety, insisting on proper attire at all times and drilling into his head what to do in emergencies, but the diminutive scientist's safety consciousness had a blind spot when it came to eating in the lab. Stephen made a mental note to add clearing Alphys's desk of ramen bowls and pop bottles to his list of daily duties; Undyne was oblivious and the one time Stephen made the mistake of reminding Alphys to do it she had heaped so much abuse on herself for being a slob that Stephen hadn't the heart to press the matter any further.

"I've b-been specifically looking into organic materials that have been tried for t-transparent electrodes in solar cells and LEDs and things like that," she said, opening up a list of references she had been compiling. "What do you think?"

Stephen scrolled through the list. Alphys's note-taking was admirably meticulous; she had divided everything up into categories and subcategories, and she'd annotated each citation with a few words that told Stephen what Alphys thought would be promising to follow up: _"looks fairly simple", "possible dead end", "worth a later look",_ and so forth. Stephen saw a lot of names that were at least somewhat familiar to him: polyaniline, polythiophene, graphene, carbon nanotubes.

"Looks good so far," Stephen said.

Alphys grinned and wagged her tail. "Thanks to your help I've been able to learn so m-much just in the past couple hours! When I was d-down in the Underground I'd never even heard of conducting polymers. None of the books I salvaged said a-anything about them. Plastics that conduct electricity, it's incredible! I've got so many ideas I want to try."

Stephen could believe it. You couldn't fake the sort of enthusiasm that burned in Alphys, nor the mastery she'd already achieved with little more than discarded textbooks to work from.

 _Yet she actually believes in a device that makes magic,_ Stephen reminded himself. It was a bit difficult to take. He idly wondered if there was some cultural explanation for Alphys's bizarre assertion about the CORE—maybe some superstition arising from the deaths or disappearances of Dr. Gaster and his team when building the machine, some taboo passed down through generations and meant to keep the monsters from messing with the thing.

Undyne's loud return to the lab brought an end to his wool-gathering. "TIME TO EAT PUNKS!" she hollered. Her new T-shirt was spotted with damp patches, droplets of water gleamed on her bare arms and dripped off her fins, and she balanced a pizza box with one hand. "Brought some leftovers from home. Join me in the breakroom nerds!"

Alphys and Stephen trooped to the breakroom, shedding their lab coats at the door. Stephen fetched a roast beef sandwich out of the fridge while Alphys grabbed a slice of day-old pepperoni pizza to eat cold and Undyne popped one in a toaster oven, impatiently bouncing up and down as it warmed up. "Even when you crank this thing up to 'broil' it's still so goddamn slow," she complained. "If you and Steve wanna do something useful, Alphy, you should invent an oven that doesn't take a year and a half to heat anything."

Stephen munched on his cold beef sandwich, looking with a trace of longing at the pizza. "What did you use Underground? Did you have ovens and stoves and whatnot?"

"We did," Alphys replied. "I, uh, I actually d-designed the appliances that were sold under the MTT brand. They ran off the power supplied by the CORE."

"Yeah, I had one of those," Undyne reminisced as she withdrew a blackened slice of pizza from the smoking toaster oven and munched on it with evident enjoyment. "Now _that_ thing could _cook._ Burned my house down with it! But I gotta tell you, Steve, nothing's better for cooking than fire magic."

 _That damn word again!_ Stephen bit back the sarcasm that threatened to spoil his voice. "Undyne, are you saying that you were, uh, capable of making fire with...magic?"

"Me? Nah, never me! King—well, ex-King Fluffybuns, he can do it. And Toriel can. All I can do with magic is this." She stood in the center of the room and raised a partly-clenched fist. A moment later, her fist was grasping a luminous, aquamarine-blue spear, equal to her in height. She raised it in the air in an exultant pose. "Fuhuhuhu! That's the stuff!"

Stephen jerked backwards in his chair at the sudden materialization of the spear, and the uneaten half of his sandwich landed on the floor. "How—how did you do that?!"

"Magic, duh! Why are you acting so surprised, Steve? I've been learning a _lot_ about your history lately and there was magic all over the place! Magical necklaces and jewels and brooches, warriors duking it out with magic bolts and blasts, magical princesses teaming up to fight—"

Alphys interrupted with her high-pitched giggle. "W-well, Undyne, sometimes those stories from, um, 'history' can b-be a bit exaggerated. And all that was from a l-long time ago. Humans today don't know anything about magic."

Stephen's eyes were focused on the spear. "D'you mind if I...look at that?"

"This? Let me make a more convenient sample for ya Steve." She held out her palm; a moment later, it held a glowing blue spear-head. "I can make them as big or as small as I like," she said, handing the object over.

Stephen hefted it gingerly in his hand. It was very light but otherwise felt solid and substantial enough. He tapped it experimentally against the table-top and tried looking through the object at the fluorescent lamp above him. He could see nothing but the object's intrinsic blue luminosity. "What's this made out of? Do you know?"

Alphys giggled. "It's not r-really made out of anything, Stephen. I'm p-pretty sure it's not matter, as you think of it."

"Nonsense! It's got physical properties, right? I can weigh this, get its volume, measure how hard it is…"

Undyne broke in. "But can you do _this_ with matter?" She opened the hand that grasped her spear; Stephen watched it dissipate, within less than a second, into a whiff of blue phosphorescence. In another moment, she'd produced a replacement.

"And don't be t-too sure you can tell how hard that thing is, either," Alphys put in. "Try to scratch it with anything, even d-diamond, and you'll fail. But hit it hard enough…"

Undyne gripped her spear firmly and smashed a precisely judged fist into the shaft just above her grip. Cracks radiated outward from the point of impact, darkening the blue radiance of the spear like flaws in a sapphire. Then she let go the spear, and it dissolved.

Alphys gave a little coo of pleasure at the success of her scientific demonstration. "And if you hit it even harder…"

Undyne summoned yet another spear, gripped it hard and swung her fist into it. It burst into a hundred shining blue fragments; Stephen instinctively flinched to avoid them, but within moments all the of the glowing shards had vanished.

Alphys clapped her paws delightedly. Undyne grinned hugely and struck a biceps-flexing pose for her. "Yeah, not bad, huh Alphy? And there's a lot more where _that_ came from…"

Stephen laughed. "All right, you've made your point, you two." He looked again at the glowing spear-head in his hand, hefting it meditatively. "Okay, Alphys...what if I tried to analyze this thing? What if I run its light through a spectrometer? What if I tried to dissolve it in acid, or shone a laser on it, or hit it with an electron beam?"

Alphys giggled. "I can't say that I tried _all_ of th-those things when I was working Underground, but I did try s-some of them. I don't think you'll find any solvent that will touch it; I never did. And the spectrum of its light? A single, bright line at 490 nanometers—"

"Oh! That's, uh...four point nine oh times ten to the minus seven meters!" Undyne grinned.

"That's right! Oh, Undyne, you're so strong _and_ clever...ah, um. S-sorry. Anyway, Stephen, the spectrum showed n-no other features. N-no other lines, no background continuum. Just one line."

Stephen tried to weigh everything he knew, everything he'd ever studied and ever done, against the stubborn existence of the spear-point in his palm, calmly radiating away at 4900 angstroms. "Undyne, can I, uh, keep this?"

"Sorry, Steve, the spears and arrows I make, they don't last forever. Not unless I want them to, if that makes any sense? Maybe if I focused on keeping that spear-head around, you'd be able to stick it in your pocket and find it there later. But first time my mind wandered onto food, or my girlfriend's sexy tail…" The spear-head evaporated from Stephen's hand.

Stephen said nothing. He spied the fallen remnants of his roast beef sandwich, scooped them up from the floor and tossed them into the trash.

"You, uh, you okay there Steve?" Undyne asked.

"Huh? Yeah, I'm fine...it's just. Heh. It's a bit much to process." He looked back and forth between the two monsters in front of him. "Undyne, can all monsters do what you've just done?"

"Summon glowy blue pointy things? Nah, that's just what I can do. But all monsters have—"

" _Most_ monsters, Undyne." The brittleness in Alphys's tone caught Stephen's attention. The scientist's eyes were studying the tabletop. " _Most_ monsters."

"Oh. Um, sorry, Alphy...anyway, Steve, lots of monsters have different things they can do. Some can do a bit more than others. My magic's pretty boring in comparison to what someone like, say, Toriel can do. Alphy here's just put more work into studying mine 'cause I was always hanging round her at the old lab anyway." She reached for the little scientist's paw and kissed her on the snout. At this Alphys looked up and smiled.

"Hm." Stephen stood up and paced. "Well...I know a bit of chemistry and a few other things, but I don't know that I'm too qualified to help you with magical studies."

"That's really not wh-what we're about here, Stephen," said Alphys, looking glum. "I c-came to the Surface wanting to l-learn more about human science and that's why I want your h-help, because you're a human scientist."

 _Sort of,_ Stephen thought. "And I'll help you as much as I can," he said aloud. "But it's gonna be a bit tough in the lab, grinding up potassium bromide mulls or sweating to get a few extra percent yield out of some reaction or other, when you've got a lab partner who can summon perfectly monochromatic light sources at will."

"Very pointy ones," Undyne boasted.

"We sh-should go back to work," said Alphys. "On some real human science. Will that satisfy you for now, Stephen?"

"Yeah, I guess so." Undyne tossed the pizza box with its single remaining piece into the fridge as Stephen followed Alphys out of the breakroom. "But I'm not done with this topic by a long shot. And what does any of this have to do with a geothermal power station?"

"W-would you believe, Stephen…" replied Alphys in a small voice, "...it's still k-kind of a mystery to me too?"


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

 **Come Saturday Morning**

Stephen had just extricated himself from his tangled bedclothes and was blundering to the kitchen to fix himself some coffee when his phone rang: Evelyn was calling him. He answered while fumbling about in his kitchen with one hand.

"Hi, Evelyn? What're you calling so early on a Saturday for?"

"Early? Steve, it's past ten a.m. Are you okay?"

 _Ten?...aw, shit, she's right._ "Yeah, I'm fine, I just slept in."

"You, uh, you didn't decide to have a binge last night and you're not telling me?"

"What? No!" Stephen glared at his phone. "Evelyn, that hurts."

"You know why I'm asking, Steve. It's happened before and you've lied to me before, or tried to. I'm sorry but I'm gonna keep asking you questions like this when I'm...well, worried about you. I haven't heard from you in a week."

"Oh, damn, has it been that long? Sorry, Evelyn, I'm still adjusting to my new schedule. It's a forty-five minute commute to Ebottsville, and then on Mondays and Fridays after the drive home I have to go to that 'Smart Recovery' group meeting downtown."

"Jeez, Steve, maybe you should go to something that meets weekends."

Stephen scooped ground coffee into a filter while his electric kettle heated up. "Only groups I found that meet weekends are all AA-run and I don't trust those guys." When Evelyn had tried dragging him to an alcoholic support group years ago neither she nor Stephen had known about anything other than Alcoholics Anonymous; the unpalatable "born again" flavor of the few AA meetings he attended was still bitter in Stephen's memory. The "Smart" approach wasn't sitting much better with him—all the self-help talk of "motivation" and "confidence" and "self-acceptance" reminded Stephen too much of books found in supermarkets next to the bubble gum—but at least he didn't feel like he was attending an Elmer Gantry tent revival.

"As long as you're going to something regular I'm happy. Do you think it's working?"

"...I don't know? I feel out of place. I don't say much and doodle in a notebook a lot." He poured his water and watched it percolate. "When the facilitator comes out with some phrase like 'self-empowerment' I want to say rude things. But, I dunno...I guess it keeps me out of trouble a couple nights a week."

"Hmm. Well, I guess that's a start for you, anyway. Can you promise me you won't just walk out for another two weeks at least?"

"All right, Evelyn, I promise."

"And you know, Steve, I know it all sounds like psychobabble to you, but 'self-empowerment' and stuff like that isn't always a joke. I want you to at least consider that."

"Aw, Evelyn, really? 'Positive thinking', 'self-affirmation', 'self-actualization'? Isn't that Dale Carnegie how-to-succeed-in-business shit?"

"No." Evelyn's voice hardened. "Do I really need to remind you, Steve, that I've had a shitload more experience at 'self-actualization' than you?"

Stephen gulped. "I'm sorry, Evelyn. I...I guess I never really thought of your experience in, well, terms quite like that. I'm sorry."

"Oh…" Evelyn's voice softened a bit. "I didn't mean to make you feel bad. I know thinking about this touchy-feely stuff doesn't come naturally to you and you sort of guard yourself against it. It's calculus and chemicals you can deal with, not emotions. I didn't like talking or thinking too much about that stuff myself, not when I first knew you anyway, but taking estradiol twice a day has a way of forcing you to deal with your feelings." She delivered herself of a short laugh. "Just...don't jump straight to making fun of the self-help talk, okay? Not this time?"

"Aw, all right. The things I do for you, Evelyn...sure you don't want to get married?"

"Not until you get better at cooking."

"Oh, fine."

Evelyn laughed genially. "Change of subject! How's your job been going? Getting along well with the creatures from beneath?"

"Yeah! Alphys and Undyne are...well, they're really nice."

"'Nice', great. You need to come up with better adjectives, Steve. No wonder you almost failed creative writing in college."

"Seriously, though, they are! I should introduce you to them. Alphys is really smart and shy and blushy and Undyne's, like, Ellen Ripley if Ripley had blue scales and fins and could bench-press a minivan. And they're so adorable and snuggly together."

Evelyn's voice rose in excitement. "Waaait, Steve, you didn't tell me anything like this last time! Your monster bosses are having a torrid lesbian affair with each other? Now I _have_ to meet them."

"I'll set it up," Stephen giggled. "Just promise me you won't hit on either of them."

"I promise nothing. What've they got you working on?"

"Solar cells. Alphys wants to build a power infrastructure for Ebottsville that's independent of the grid."

"Huh, makes some sense I guess. The monsters don't want to run the risk of getting cut off, I bet."

"Yeah, I suppose so. They're sort of used to managing on their own anyway. You know they had their own geothermal plant down there Underground? Although…" Stephen felt suddenly a bit silly and self-conscious. "Alphys _says_ that it used magic."

Evelyn's answer was nonchalant. "The monsters have magic? Shit, that doesn't surprise me."

"What, really?"

"Steve, I write and draw a comic with talking dragons and a gryphon in it. Magic isn't exactly a shocking concept to me."

"But, really, Evelyn…" He was about to say, _but that's just fantasy,_ but then Undyne's glowing spears were something out of fantasy, too. "Look, I can't deny that the monsters seem to have some odd abilities. Undyne gave me a demonstration of some really baffling things she can do...but...well, you know, Clarke's Law and all that…"

"Meh, screw Arthur Clarke, he was a shit writer. What's wrong with a bit of mystery?"

"You know I've never been very happy with the idea of 'mystery', Evelyn."

"Oh, I know." She chuckled a little. "I guess that's why you got so into chemical analysis; you were never happy not knowing what something was made out of." Then she sighed. "Steve, I'm know I'm just a mushy humanities student who draws pictures for a living and still owns a couple books about witchcraft. I don't have your brain or your knowhow. So maybe you'll just think it's dumb or insulting for me to say that...I kinda hope that, whatever weird stuff the monsters are able to do, isn't anything you can figure out."

"Evelyn, saying _that_ to a science nerd is like waving a red flag in front of a bull."

"Yeah, I know, I know. But...remember how you made fun of me when I was messing around with the Wiccan stuff?"

"Until you told me where to fucking stick it, yes."

"Yeah. I guess it must have looked kind of silly to you, chanting things and waving an athame around and all that hocus-pocus...and even then, even when I was really into it, I kind of knew that it wouldn't do what I secretly hoped it'd do. It wasn't _real_ spell-casting. But…" Evelyn's voice was soft and wistful. "I've never entirely given up wishing that maybe that stuff _could_ be real. If not for me, then maybe for someone else." Evelyn chuckled. "And who better a 'someone else' than real live monsters?"

"Well, Evelyn, maybe you've gotten your wish. But I'm still going to poke into this a bit, in my boring science-nerd way, and see what I can figure out."

"I wouldn't expect any less from you, Steve, and I'm not gonna stop you. But, well, try to have a bit of perspective. Don't turn _everything_ into a science experiment. Sometimes you should just accept the gifts you're given, you know?"

"Gifts?" Stephen asked in puzzlement. "What do you mean?"

"Some of us…" Evelyn's voice wavered a bit, as if she was having difficulty choosing her words. "It's hard to describe how we felt when we found out that monsters were real and wanted to live among us. It inspired in us, in me anyway, something that wasn't just fear or curiosity or even fellowship. It was something bigger. Something we really don't want to lose."

"What was it, Evelyn?"

"Hope." Evelyn cleared her throat. "I'd better start thinking about what I'm gonna do for lunch. Good hearing from you at last, Steve! Got any evening plans?"

"Nah, not a thing."

"Me neither. Might just stay home and write. Talk later, huh?"

"Look forward to it! See you later, Evelyn."

* * *

Stephen was just polishing off his deli-counter ham and cheese sandwich—Evelyn was sadly correct in her estimation of her friend's skill at cooking—when his phone rang. "Hello?" he responded.

"HEY THERE NERD! Enjoying your weekend?" Something about being on the phone always prompted Undyne to use her outdoor voice, as if she felt she had to make up for distance with sheer volume.

"Yeah, but it's been slow. How are you and Alphys?"

"Still in bed, of course!" Stephen heard Alphys giggle in embarrassment as Undyne went on. "Reason I was calling, Steve, is that Alphy and me think it's high time we start giving you some history lessons. We're inviting you over to watch anime with us tonight, wanna come?"

Stephen heard the phone change hands. "I m-mean, you don't have to," said Alphys. "I know it's k-kind of short notice and it's a long d-drive…I dunno, Undyne, maybe we sh-should schedule for a later night…"

"Don't worry about it, Alphys," replied Stephen, trying to project as much gratitude into his voice as he could. "I'd be thrilled to come over. What time do you want to start?"

"You'll come? Oh, that's great! Thank you!" said Alphys, plainly relieved.

"FUHUHU! WE'RE GONNA HAVE SO MUCH FUN!" Undyne yelled from the background.

"Any time after five o'clock is fine, Stephen," Alphys went on. "I've g-got a lot of stuff to choose from to watch."

"Oh, um…" Stephen hesitated momentarily. "Is it okay if I bring a friend? There's someone I think you'd love to meet, my best friend here in town, Evelyn Strecker. She's an artist and she's really cool and funny, and she's curious to meet you both."

"Um, sure, Stephen," Alphys replied. "I guess that's fine. What d-do you think, Undyne?"

Stephen heard Undyne grab the phone back. "She's _curious_ huh? Well, well, Steve, what stories you been telling your pal about Alphy and me? Nothing too tame I hope!"

"Oh, Undyne, I wouldn't do anything like that…"

"Aaah, Steve, you're no fun. But shit, yeah, I'd love to meet any friend of yours. I'll get to treat her to some of my famous home-cooked lasagna! YEAH!"

"...or we could just get a pizza…" Stephen thought he heard Alphys say.

"Okay!" said Stephen. "I'll contact Evelyn to see if she's game, and I'm pretty sure she will be. I'll text you when we're on our way."

"SUPER!" Undyne bawled. "See you tonight, punk!"


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

 **Fish and Chits**

"Thanks for coming on such short notice, Evelyn," said Stephen. "I'm not messing up your work, am I?"

Stephen kept his eyes fixed on the narrow, circuitous road ahead of him as the little Civic labored its way through the hills toward Mount Ebott. He hadn't ever made the drive from Highlands to Ebottsville this late in the day before; the winding strip of asphalt was already deep in shadow and Stephen was a little fearful of hitting an animal.

"No, don't worry about that, Steve," said Evelyn, sounding a little weary. "I wasn't getting any writing or drawing done anyway." Evelyn fumbled in her purse for some chewing gum to relieve the pressure in her ears. "Gotta admit I'm not at my best right now. I'm sort of hoping that your cute monster friends will cheer me up."

Stephen spared as long a glance as his friend's face as he could. "You've been looking like you've got something on your mind," he said. "Anything you can talk about?"

"Eh...just routine crap, Steve. Got a love letter early this afternoon from some rando...nothing I haven't seen before. Don't worry, I'll be fine."

Stephen scowled, making a few guesses about what was in the "love letter". "I'm sorry, Evelyn," he said. "I never know what to say."

"Nothing _to_ say, Steve. Just give me a hug when we're gone with the drive and we're good, okay?"

"That I can do." Stephen slowed the car as the trees ahead began to thin. "And pretty soon too. We're almost there. Quarter of a mile at most."

A couple of minutes later Ebottsville lay before them, silhouetted against the early evening sky, illuminated by the warm glow of early twilight. Evelyn gasped. "Holy shit!" she exclaimed. "I'd seen photos and stuff of this place but, jeez...there was _nothing_ here before! Now look at it!"

Stephen grinned. Even after only a few weeks of working days in the monsters' town had made him feel, just a little, as though it were his town as well. "It's pretty sweet, isn't it? I'm not sure what the total monster population Underground was and not all of them have left for the Surface yet. But, assuming all goes well, this place will probably be a respectable little city eventually."

"Damn, I really hope so! This is just _too_ cool."

Stephen pulled into the parking lot of the convenience store. "I want to stop here first to grab some two-liters. Do you want to come in?"

"Sure! Is it freaky and monstery inside?"

"Er, well, not really. It's just a boring, ordinary convenience store, with the same old guy running it. But he has been stocking some locally made products, if you want a souvenir."

They exited the car and, before going into the store, shared a quick, friendly hug. "Hope that helps a little, Evelyn," said Stephen with a smile.

"A bit, a bit," she replied, also smiling. "Though you've still got some of that stiff-armed man-hug thing going, Steve. You're gonna have to break that habit some day."

They entered the store. As usual, the proprietor didn't look up but kept his eyes on his reading material—Agatha Christie this time, Stephen noticed—as his customers came in. Stephen went to grab a couple bottles of pop while Evelyn wandered up and down the aisles, peering at everything.

"Hey Steve! These any good?" Evelyn called out from halfway across the store, holding up an individually wrapped chocolate-chip cookie bearing the now-familiar (to Stephen) smiling face and purple lettering of Muffet's bakery. "It looks edible enough."

"Oh, yeah, Muffet's stuff is all good, don't worry. Though they tend to have a bit different texture or flavor than I'm used to...maybe monsters have different palates. Anyway, I've got what I wanted, let's check out."

To Stephen's surprise, when he and Evelyn deposited their items on the counter for purchase, the proprietor carefully bookmarked and set aside his mystery novel and rang up the sale himself. "Hey, Mr. Darzens," Stephen asked, "the last couple times I've been in here you had that 'Burgy' monster working the register. Is he around?"

"Sorry to say, young man," Darzens replied, "Burgy quit last week. He said he found a better job in town." The old man gave a dry chuckle. "Probably just as well. I hated the smell of his cheap smokes." The transaction finished, the old man returned to his reading and paid his customers no further heed.

"Interesting guy," said Evelyn when they got back to the Civic. "Who was this 'Burgy'?"

"Someone I was sort of hoping you'd get to see," Stephen said, starting up the car. "He really was something to watch in action. I've never met anyone who hated a job more."

* * *

Stephen headed slowly through town, keeping his speed low, his window rolled down and his eyes peeled for any monsters in the roadway. Many of the monsters were still a bit unused to the phenomenon of the automobile and jaywalking was an unknown sin to them, so whenever Stephen drove through Ebottsville he was always on the lookout for creatures great and small who might decide at any given moment that the middle of Mountain Haven Road was an excellent place for a stroll or a chat or a lie-down. Fortunately the sight of Stephen's hatchback was starting to become familiar enough in Ebottsville that only rarely now would he have to stop and explain to (say) a sedentary mass of animated green gelatin that they hadn't picked a good place for a snooze and, no, he couldn't just go around.

Evelyn stared out of her window in fascination. She'd retrieved a small sketchbook and pencil from her purse and was rapidly sketching her first impressions of Ebottsville. "You've gotta bring me here during the day, Steve!" she said, executing a quick drawing of a monster resembling a bouncy, grinning carrot, who shouted "Eat your greens!" as the car rolled slowly past. "I wanna see what this place is like when it's light out and everyone's out and about. Where are we headed?"

"Far edge of town. That's where the lab is and not far from it Undyne and Alphys have a small house. I've never been to the house but they assure me there's no way to mistake which one is theirs."

Eventually Stephen pulled up and parked out front of the Alphyne Laboratories building. As her eyes scanned the pink concrete warehouse Evelyn wrinkled her nose a little. "This is the ugliest building in town. Looks like a damn fallout shelter."

"I think Alphys went with the cheapest construction that wouldn't fall down or burn up. Anyway, they said their place is somewhere in the row of houses behind the lab." They strolled round the left side of the laboratory building to the back, where a graded and gravelled path separated the lab from a row of small houses. Most were small, if charming, wooden houses in a miscellany of styles, but one house in the row stood out, a single-family bungalow that would have looked ordinary had it not been painted to resemble an angry piranha, with metallic grey scales, dormer windows for eyes and white teeth on the door. Stephen and Evelyn approached it side by side.

"Think this is the place?" Evelyn said out of the corner of her mouth.

"Pretty sure," Stephen replied. "Oh, before we go in, I should warn you: Alphys told me ahead of time that Undyne thinks anime is...uh, historical."

"What?! Like in _Galaxy Quest?_ " Evelyn guffawed. "How'd she get that idea?"

"Alphys sort of told her it was...? Argh, it'll take too long to explain. The point is...if Undyne says anything weird along those lines, just roll with it."

He knocked on the door. He heard a voice bellow "I'll get it!" from inside the house and in a few moments Undyne was at the door. She was wearing close-fitting jeans and a black Screaming Females T-shirt that agreeably showed off her physique. Stephen smiled to himself as he noticed Evelyn standing up just a little straighter and adjusting her hair.

"Hey there Steve! Glad you could come! And this must be your artist pal Evelyn." Undyne stuck out a hand, which Evelyn shook with great enthusiasm. "My name's Undyne. I, uh, I hope you'll forgive us but the place _is_ kind of a dump at the moment. Uh...most moments, actually."

Evelyn chuckled. "Oh, I'm sure it's no problem, Undyne. Nothing that Steve and I didn't get used to when we were in college together!"

Stephen nodded. "Yeah, as long as there isn't a dead horse in the middle of your living room we'll probably be fine."

"You're a Screaming Females fan, Undyne?" asked Evelyn?

"Huh? Oh, the shirt! Nah, this was just something I found at a thrift store. It's got a shark on it, I had to buy it! Anyway, come in you two." Undyne turned round and they followed her into the house.

Evelyn's eyes strayed to the seat of Undyne's pants and leaned over to whisper in Stephen's ear, "Fucking hell, Steve, you didn't tell me she was _hot_ — _"_

"Down, girl," he whispered back. "Pretty sure she's only got eyes for—"

"ALPHYS!" Undyne yelled as she walked into the living room. "STEVE AND HIS FRIEND ARE HERE!"

"Coming, Undyne!" Shortly the little scientist appeared from a room in back, munching on a stick of strawberry Pocky and scattering crumbs over a blue T-shirt that read, "Kawaii in the Streets, Senpai in the Sheets". Stephen heard Evelyn stifle a laugh. When she came into the living room and saw her guests she hastily chomped down what was left of the Pocky stick and brushed the crumbs from her chest. "Oh, h-hi, Steve! I'm so happy you could come. And y-your friend…uh, I sh-should remember her name…"

"Evelyn Strecker," she said, shaking Alphys's paw. "Nice place you and your girl have got here!" She and Stephen looked around the living room. It really did feel warm and hospitable, but its look suggested the rumpus room of a college dormitory: discarded clothes hung over the backs of chairs and were scattered over the floor, empty food packages and bottles were on every flat surface, papers and books and games littered the floor, and a stack of unreturned Amazon Fresh totes was shoved into a corner. A round dining table at one end of the living room had stacks of printouts, manuscripts, and drawings all over it; Stephen glanced at the top sheet of one of these stacks; his eyes widened in surprise when he saw what looked like a long, exquisitely detailed—

"Ahahaha! L-l-let me clear th-those!" Alphys rapidly grabbed up the sheaves of papers. "It's f-for a friend! W-work in p-p-progress!" She giggled again and scampered off to stow the papers in another room, then rushed back, still flushed with embarrassment. "W-well, uh...Undyne _was_ going to have l-lasagna cooked, but then, um, s-something went wrong, so I h-hope pizza is fine."

"Yeah," said Undyne, curling one of her arms around Alphys's waist and pulling her close against her body, scratching the lizard's head with the claws of her free hand. "I mean, _I_ thought it was fine, maybe a bit tough to chew, but then Alphy here reminded me that humans don't have as good chompers as mine." She proudly grinned to show off her own alarming teeth. "So pizza it is. C'mon, sit on the couch you two! Don't worry about taking up all the room, Alphy 'n me will cuddle up on the floor."

"Pizza, huh?" said Evelyn as she cleared the couch of manga volumes and threw herself down on it in luxuriant repose. "Didn't think Dominos or Pizza Hut delivered this far."

"Oh, no, it's l-local," said Alphys. "There used to be a p-pizza place in the monster capital and the owner's moved it up here. K-kinda limited selection so far, though."

"Evelyn, you're taking up the whole couch!" protested Stephen as he sought a place for himself.

"Steve, you know I'm part cat. I take up as much space as I need to feel comfortable. Here, sit at that end and I'll rest my legs on your knees."

"Fine. Here—let me—" Stephen tread cautiously across the cluttered floor to the couch and awkwardly worked himself into place on it, weaving his way around and under Evelyn's legs, grumbling and grousing as he attempted to get comfortable. Undyne snickered.

"Are you two an old married couple or something?" she asked.

Evelyn chuckled. "Haha, no. We did date for a short while in college, under _very_ different circumstances. Now I just interfere with Steve's life from time to time and try to keep him from getting into too much trouble."

"Well, you don't need to worry. Steve's been no trouble, Evie—uh, can I call you Evie?"

"You may," said Evelyn.

"Well done, Undyne," Stephen said. "You've made it from 'Evelyn' to 'Evie' quicker than anyone else she's ever met. Usually it's got to wait till at least the second date."

"Steve, you're _horrible!"_ Evelyn bapped him playfully over the head with her sketchbook. "I just want to extend as much courtesy as I can to our monster friends and make them feel at home on our planet—uh, our _part_ of the planet—and extend them a welcome on behalf of humanity and—" She stopped herself, aware that she was blithering, and shook her head with a slight giggle. "Jeez. Gotta be honest. I'm trying to make it seem like it's no big deal, but really...I just can't believe that I'm _here_ , about to eat pizza with a couple of _monsters._ I've been drawing imaginary creatures my whole life. I never in a million years thought I'd ever _meet_ any."

"Huh, you saying we're imaginary?" asked Undyne, poking herself in the chest a couple times. "I feel pretty solid to me. What about you Alphy? Let me see if you feel solid." Undyne rubbed her hands all over her lover's belly, causing the lizard to squirm and squeak with pleasure. "Yeah, don't think she's imaginary either, Evie."

Evelyn snorted. "Oh, Undyne, you know what I mean."

Undyne grinned. "Sure I do. It was the same with me and humans. When we were still stuck Underground I bet ninety percent of the monsters wouldn't have been able to tell you what a human looked like. I knew only 'cause Alphy was my friend and she showed me a lot of the stuff from the Surface that she collected from the garbage dump. And even then when I finally laid eyes on Frisk I had my doubts. I guess I'd been expecting something...taller? And they didn't have a big sword or a magic amulet or anything!"

Alphys smiled back her girlfriend. "Not all human c-carry stuff like that, Undyne."

Undyne snorted. "And they didn't do anything freaky at _all!_ Just smiled at me and ran away a lot! Frankly I was a little disappoin—" A short knock on the front door interrupted her. "Shit, must be the pizza. I'll get it—I SAID I'LL GET IT STEVE! SIDDOWN! RELAX!" Undyne hollered when Stephen made an involuntary upward motion at the sound of the knock. She gently detached herself from Alphys and got up to answer.

Undyne was halfway to the door when the soft knock turned into a loud thumping. "What the fuck?!" Undyne fumed. "I'M GETTING IT, I'M GETTING IT!" she yelled as she leapt for the knob and yanked open the door to be greeted with the sight of a monster like an orange tabby cat, a cigarette clamped in its mouth, a pizza-delivery bag on one arm.

"...lazy ass customers want their damn pizza in a big hurry, then won't even answer the— _good evening,_ O customer!" said "Burgy", his sour face instantly convulsing into a galvanic smile once he took notice of Undyne. "You ordered the large pepperoni and large mushroom?"

"Yeah, that's ours. Here's your money." She took the boxes and dropped a small heap of coins into Burgy's paw. Burgy looked at the coins and then back at Undyne, the spasmodic grin still on his face.

"Thank you," said Undyne.

Burgy stared for a moment longer than clenched his paw over the coins and widened his grin. "Thank _you_ ma'am! Here's your copy of the receipt!" he chirped. "And thanks for ordering from Sad Dragon Pizza!" He trudged off. "...come all the way out here to the edge of town to get a crummy one gee tip—" came the receding sounds of his muttering, before Undyne slammed the door.


	15. Chapter 15

"Something a Little More Plain, Something a Little More Sane" was the first "Undertale" story that I began writing in April 2016, plotting it in my head at four in the morning as I lay in bed still wide awake after finishing the game for the first time. I did not know it then but it was my first brush with something immensely powerful, something that kindled in me an unprecedented blaze of creativity and activity. Rereading the first chapters of my old writing I can still feel the energy, the _determination,_ crackling beneath the surface. But then ignorance of what _really_ had happened to me late that April night, and the crushing weight of a lifetime of self-destructive habits, conspired to sever my connexion with the source of my inspiration. My writing lost its momentum and my determination spent itself and evaporated, like a great river that had been dammed and diverted in so many places that it no longer had the strength to reach the sea. Rereading the later chapters of "Something a Little More Plain", seeing the vitality and spirit leaking away from my prose, has been a sobering and mournful experience. No wonder I wasn't ever able, even after months of encouragement from without and self-punishment from within, to get back into writing "Something a Little More Plain". It was too painful a thing for me to touch.

A number of intensely personal experiences in recent days, however, have—I hope—reminded me of why I felt so strong and irresistible a compulsion to begin writing "Undertale" stories in the first place. The fire is ablaze in me again, and it is time for me to return to what I have left unfinished—either to finish it or, in the sad case of "Something a Little More Plain", to acknowledge that it will never be finished.

I apologise to any readers who may have been hoping that eventually I would pick up the dropped thread of this story. I am not abandoning _all_ of the work I have done here, however, so in lieu of a proper continuation of this tale, and as a therapeutic activity for myself, I have decided to explain what my original intentions were for "Something a Little More Plain", what assumptions about the world of "Undertale" lay in back of it, what happened to the story to send it off the rails and what I intend to salvage from the work for future "Undertale" stories. For (goddess willing) there _will_ be more stories. I've been struggling with occasional stabs of guilt over expending so much of my time, effort, and emotional involvement on mere fanfic; at least one friend counselled me in the past to regard my "Undertale" writing as a mere stepping-stone to original writing. And I do have some ideas for completely (well, relatively) original work. Yet I can doubt no longer that writing "Undertale" stories, venerating in fiction this amazing creation that has literally changed my life, is a calling of sorts, one that I am determined to accept and act upon without shame.

* * *

The story began in my mind as a mere amusement. I was tickled by the mental image given to us at the end of the "Neutral Route" of the former Guard captain now working as her lab assistant, causing explosions but from the sound of it having a lot of fun. This detail got me to thinking: just what would Alphys's new life be on the Surface? I vaguely imagined that she'd try to set up shop again, even though Toriel had fired her from the position of Royal Scientist. My thoughts did not go much further than that when, lying next to my girlfriend in the dark, every nerve of my body still quivering after the emotional storm that I had weathered upon completion of "Undertale", I hatched the idea of a short and silly little story about what it would be like if a human scientist applied for a job at Alphys's new lab.

I can't now reconstruct every link in the chain of reasoning that ended up transforming that initial idea into the sprawling mess that is "Something a Little More Plain". As I explored the idea I found of course that even for writing a minor Undertale story I needed to build a more complete mental picture of how monster society would begin to reshape itself after its reëmergence into the human world on the Surface. I knew from the start that I didn't want to get _too_ "realistic" and dark. I didn't want there to be a complete absence of friction between humans and monsters, although I am intensely sympathetic toward "Undertale" writers who opt for a completely fluffy approach. I wanted to write a story about human-monster friendship. Difficult friendship, perhaps, but friendship nonetheless. Hence I decided from early on that I would shy away from asking too many difficult questions about human-monster relations. The scale of my writing was to be small-scale and personal, not large-scale and sociopolitical.

Central to the tale would be the relationship between Alphys and Undyne. I saw a chance here to present a somewhat different rendition of Undyne than I was encountering in fan-fiction. The natural tendency is to play up Undyne's imposing physicality, her brash and impulsive nature, and her self-professed disdain for "NERDY CRAP!" Yet I felt that the game gave me some reason not to take Undyne entirely at her word. Even though Undyne chucks Alphys into a trash can and affects not to care about her interests, only in her friend's enthusiasm for them, I read this as Undyne's putting up a more bluff than usual front to cover up the fact that she's hopelessly in love with her friend and every little thing she does. Elsewhere in the game Undyne, in the phone calls with Papyrus, passes on little details she learned from Alphys about how the CORE is kept running and about how she helped her friend design puzzles. From this I concluded that Undyne really _does_ have an interest in "nerdy crap", even though her abilities don't suit her to become a scientist. Therefore I decided that Undyne would become Alphys's counterpart in the laboratory, the practical-minded technician who doesn't know any theory but who knows how to construct equipment and keep it running. No good laboratory for research in the physical sciences is complete without a machine shop; that's where I saw Undyne at home. In any case, running a lab takes a bit of grunt work, too. Physical and chemical instrumentation isn't exactly lightweight, though I daresay it would give the brawny Undyne comparatively little trouble.

So I thought I was safe in conjecturing that Undyne would, with some training and experience, in fact make a very good lab assistant for Alphys, a true partner and not just a comic-relief figure accidentally setting things on fire. With that in mind, I wrote a short piece that eventually acquired the title "Pyrophoria" and become the first chapter of "Something a Little More Plain". Although I had larger-scale ambitions in mind, I figured that even if I couldn't think of a way to continue the writing, at least I'd have an entertaining one-shot depicting Alphys and Undyne at work. In writing that piece, a number of other motifs began to emerge. One of these was the idea that, in the laboratory setting anyway, Alphys would not be a complete doormat lost in starry-eyed adulation of her strong and handsome ladyfriend. Sure, there'd be _some_ of that, given how exciting and fresh the two monsters' relationship would still be. But still, the laboratory would be Alphys's domain and she would take her work and Undyne's training very seriously. The roles established in the game would be reversed: it would be _Alphys_ in charge of moulding raw recruit Undyne. Furthermore, while I wanted to preserve the joking allusion made in the game to Undyne's tendency to cause explosions, I wanted to show how such a thing could happen _seriously_ , as a legitimate mistake and not in the purely comical fashion of Undyne's blowing up her kitchen. Hence I conceived the idea of an accident such as a green undergraduate volunteer might make, like trying to douse a lithium aluminium hydride fire with water.

But then, in writing the accident, a darker motif occurred to me: Alphys's burden of guilt over the inadvertent pain and destruction she caused with her clumsy experiments with determination. Seeing Undyne in possible danger in the laboratory, I reasoned, would bring all that guilt rushing back to the surface. And _that_ got me thinking about how Undyne would deal with her friend's continuing, crippling emotional problems now that Alphys was no longer just her friend but her lover and companion. It's abundantly clear from the game that Alphys's coping mechanisms are poor at best; her shame is so painful to her that she runs away from it into secrecy and lies. By the end of the game she has turned a corner and is resolved to be more open and honest, but I can assure you from personal experience: a habit like _that_ doesn't get broken so easily. It's just the sort of thing that can fester and breed resentment in a romantic relationship, particularly if the other partner has a much more confident and demonstrative personality, as Undyne does. Therefore, even as I was writing just this first and maybe only chapter of the story, revelling in Alphys's and Undyne's affection and passion for each other, I began to realise that their relationship was bound to be a somewhat rocky one down the line. I could foresee a moment when Undyne would finally lose patience with her girlfriend's habit of avoidance, precipitating a crisis. This, I thought, would be excellent material to explore with further writing.

I also found myself thinking about just how well Undyne would cope with her loss of status on the Surface. In the Underground she was a great leader and a hero to all the monsters, respected and revered. Monster children wanted to grow up to _be_ her. Now, what would she be on the Surface? The monsters would all still love her, I didn't doubt that, but she wouldn't be a hero any more. I assumed, maybe rather carelessly, that the Royal Guard would have ceased to exist in a meaningful form. Sure, she'd have a place working at Alphys's side, and there's also the mention of her teaching gym (a detail that, for the sake of simplicity, I opted not to include in writing this tale), but I wondered whether she wouldn't miss being her nation's top soldier. Moreover, Undyne would now be coming into contact with humans, who would _not_ feel obliged to treat her with deference. Indeed it's probably fair to guess that even humans who were inclined toward friendliness with the monsters might have trouble with Undyne, who isn't cute or cuddly. (Well, _I_ think she is, but I'm weird.) Here, I felt, was another plausible source of dramatic tension. Undyne's simmering disappointment and buried resentment at going from a powerful symbol of courage to just another monster to whom humans say rude things would, I imagined, contribute some instability to Alphys's and Undyne's relationship, especially if Alphys was pushing Undyne into the role of the laboratory's liaison with the outside world. For it made sense to me that Alphys would, in trying to get her lab off and running, try to get help from sympathetic humans, yet she would also hate to deal with them directly. Naturally she'd tend to hide in her work and leave the dirty part of the job to Undyne, leaning a bit too heavily on her lover's strength and force of personality. Undyne would therefore have a little bit of salt continually rubbed into the wound to her pride from her demotion, and eventually she would hurl that bitterness back in Alphys's face, with disastrous results.

I should stress that, even as I was imagining these unpleasant and painful developments, I always wanted Alphys and Undyne to negotiate their personal crisis successfully. I wanted to write them fighting, but I also wanted to write of their relationship renewed and strengthened in the end. After all, my fianceé and I had succeeded in staying and growing together when _our_ dissimilar personalities clashed; I wanted the same for our little nerdy lizard and her muscle-bound fish-wife. I wasn't sure exactly how I was going to do it, but by the time I'd written "Pyrophoria" and put it up on AO3 and , I was determined that this would be the main focus of the story.

Then I turned to writing the human character and my vision began to change, perhaps not for the better. But with several thousand words more to write I think that I will leave further explanation to a separate "chapter".

Your writer,

Monophylos

29 September 2016


	16. Chapter 16

Now that I've explained how I created the nucleus around which "Something a Little More Plain" crystallised and began to grow, I can explain how its growth began to take off in some unfortunate directions.

While I wanted the core of the story to be the Alphys-Undyne relationship, I felt from the start that a human character would be a good foil to the monsters. Partly this is because, like so many other writers inspired by "Undertale", I was fascinated by the notion of the Undertale monsters coming into (mild) collision with human society in ways both humorous and painful. Furthermore, I liked the idea of a human protagonist who would be somewhat peripheral to events, involved in them but not central to them, more of an observer than an actor. Finally, because Alphys plainly had an unusual fascination with human artifacts and human technology, sharing that fascination only with Mettaton as it would seem, it made sense to me that she might venture to strike up some kind of professional relationship with another scientist.

Somehow that hypothetical scientist became Stephen Corey, the man named after two organic reactions. (You should know that I always use the names of organic reactions for original characters, with the sole exception of Evelyn Strecker's first name.) Corey ended up borrowing a few too many character traits from me, perhaps. I figured that as long as he was a scientist he might as well be an analytical chemist, which is what I studied in school; his best friend is trans, as many of my best friends are; and, most importantly, he's an alcoholic. He differs crucially in not having kicked the bottle and in being very much alone. If Stephen Corey is me, he's considerably more like I was twelve years ago than I am now.

I'm trying to remember how I decided that Stephen wasn't around when the monsters emerged from Mt. Ebott and managed to be the last person in town to learn about them. I suspect I may have been slightly influence by an old Ray Bradbury story. I hadn't planned at first to give the scientist much of a backstory at all, since I was originally going to make the story just about a human applying for a job at a monster-run laboratory—an amusing incident, enough to sustain at most a few chapters. But from the start I kept nagging myself with questions about the hypothetical situation. Just what would Alphys do? What would she and her partner be attempting to build on the Surface? _Why_ would she want to hire a human scientist, and what sort of human might end up in the job? Therefore, right from the beginning, I was compelled to put in at least a few details, hinting at answers to these questions. Thence the scope of the story began from the start to grow a little too fast for my imagination to fill in completely. I was able to keep up at first but soon I began to lag.

I tried to consider what Alphys's situation would realistically be like, given the bits of information the end of "Undertale" supplies to us. We know that Toriel sacks Alphys from her appointment as Royal Scientist, but how are we to read that? Complicating the situation is the lack of any clear indication that there's anyone capable of taking her place. Some Undertale writers have invented a whole educational and professional scientific apparatus for the Underground, with schools and degrees and a big team of boffins running the Royal Laboratory, but I decided that this made less sense than the interpretation that Alphys—and, long long before her, the vanished W. D. Gaster—were extreme rarities among monsters in their devotion to science and engineering. Gaster, it seems, had at least time to amass some kind of a staff, but whatever he did to erase himself carried his entire crew with him. But Alphys seems to have been almost completely alone, and I decided eventually that King Asgore had appointed her on Undyne's recommendation to the long-vacant position of Royal Scientist simply because there was nobody else who even remotely qualified.

Incidentally, "Something a Little More Plain" reflects my early lack of consonance with the commonplace interpretation that Gaster didn't merely disappear in the CORE, but that he somehow deleted himself from time and memory. I argued with a friend that nothing in "Undertale" actually _demanded_ this reading. But as it turned out I'd never seen the crucial "DON'T FORGET" document, which is rather strong circumstantial evidence for Gaster's erasure. But I never got round to repairing the relevant paragraphs in the story. So, as it will now forever stand, "Something a Little More Plain" assumes that Gaster and his team were merely thought to have vanished, not wiped from the timeline completely. This little misreading ended up snowballing into a bigger and bigger problem, however, because in mentioning Gaster by name I also had to mention the CORE, and it's trying to explain away the CORE that led to disruption of the story. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

What about the monsters as a whole? How were they establishing themselves on the Surface? I really didn't feel up to the task of writing a believable depiction of how the monsters were able to obtain any sort of human permission to build a settlement on the Surface, so I merely assumed that the deed was already done by the time the story starts. Making sure that Stephen Corey was out of state and at the bottom of a bottle for a few months played into this, because then there would be no need for the protagonist to know anything about the process by which the monsters got established; it all happened when he was drunk and hiding, and then when he got back he just accepted the existence of Ebottsville as a _fait accompli_. I vaguely assumed that the monsters would discreetly launder some of their mineral resources into human cash, and thus be able to do some business with the outside world, e.g. paying an employee. But I conjectured that the new monster society would strive as much as possible to be self-sufficient, not needing to depend on the humans even for such things as energy and food, in a bid to keep its dealings with human society to a minimum. This rationale supplied me with a purpose for Alphys's scientific work.

Another decision I made early was to remove Asgore from the picture. Crushed by the exposure of his cowardice and Toriel's rejection he abdicated soon after the monsters' return from exile and hid himself from the public eye as much as possible, compelling Toriel to return to the throne. I had a bit of an ulterior motive, for I wished to rescue Toriel from being frozen into the role of Goatmom, relegated solely to teaching schoolchildren and baking pies for Frisk. I felt that Undertale fanfic needed more of Toriel the leader: decisive, magisterial, always with the hint of distant thunder beneath her gentle eloquence. Thus the Queen Toriel who would eventually take a more central role in the yet-unfinished "Crouching Toriel, Hidden Cougar" began to take shape here. She had fired Alphys, but did that imply that she was hostile toward Alphys? I decided that it did not. Asgore had given Alphys a job that was beyond her grasp, and her attempts to fulfill her mission were clumsy and blundering; and, when it all went south, Alphys's crippling emotional problems ensured that she dealt with the consequences of her mistakes in the worst possible way. But she had done no malice; she had no reason to think she would cause harm rather than good; and so I felt that Toriel would punish Alphys but forgive her. (I'm aware that not everyone agrees with this, just as there are those who find Pearl from "Steven Universe" to be repellent rather than tragic.) Therefore I decided that Toriel would cut Alphys loose to rebuild from scratch on her own, recognising that the monsters needed Alphys's unique expertise if they were to make their own way on the Surface, but unwilling to extend her the official support of the government. Hence it seemed reasonable for me to assume that Alphys's new laboratory would be a hand-to-mouth affair, short of money and equipment. Also, partly because of its piecemeal nature and partly because of the peculiar needs of the new monster settlement, the new lab wouldn't necessarily have a clear research focus. It would have to dabble in everything.

With these assumptions in place, it started to make sense to me that any human who would end up working at a sketchy new business without a definite mission and run by a couple of monsters who barely know how to use money would be the sort of human who couldn't be too picky about work. This, I thought, justified writing Stephen as I did, as a damaged individual with a dodgy record and a drinking problem, wobbling perilously close to complete burnout. He would be desperate for something, anything, to rescue himself from his slump and work in a lab again, any lab; the monsters couldn't afford to be too choosy either since I imagine that their job advertisement wouldn't attract serious applicants. Moreover, I felt like I was honouring the spirit of "Undertale" in writing my OC in this way. It's a game about broken people learning to survive and rebuild their lives. I know that writing human characters into major roles in an "Undertale" story is often a recipe for trouble; you end up with a lot of "Poochie" types who make friends and even strike up romantic relationships with the monsters with improbable ease. But even after going over the writing with a more critical eye this morning I still think that Stephen Corey was a reasonable creation, and I'm reluctant fully to abandon him.

At first I wasn't intending for the human protagonist to have a best friend. But I needed a voice on the other end of a phone call, so then the voice needed a name. It didn't take long for the voice with a name to become Evelyn Strecker, who is a kind of composite of a number of friends of mine, with a dab of my girlfriend in her as well. Indeed my girlfriend supplied the name "Evelyn", indirectly; back when she and I were discussing her pending application for an official name change, I suggested "Evelyn" because she was still flirting at the time with adopting a name with a touch of gender ambiguity. ("Evelyn" can be a male name; q.v. Evelyn Waugh.) But wisely she rejected my suggestion and went with a far more suitable name that wasn't even on the list we went over together. (I must stifle a giggle.)

Once Evelyn Strecker snapped into focus as a trans character, she acquired the characteristics that I most admire in my trans friends: toughness, forcibility, an impatience for bullshit, and a hard-earned conviction that the only hope for personal happiness is to build it from scratch and tell society at large to go fuck itself. And as she took shape in this manner, a curious symmetry began to emerge. Stephen was evolving into a kind of human version of Alphys: intelligent but deeply troubled and with a strong inclination to hide himself in times of trouble. Evelyn was developing into a reflection of Undyne: determined, direct, defiant in the face of opposition. This seemed like good news for storytelling because then I could present Stephen and Evelyn as a sort of alternate-Universe version of the Alphys-Undyne pair—too dissimilar for a romantic relationship, but nevertheless close friends despite their clashing personalities. And I felt, too, that Evelyn could have a word or two of advice from experience to Undyne about how to get along in a society that tended to turn up its nose at her.

At this point in the evolution of "Something a Little More Plain", complications have arisen and the story is beginning to develop some unintended side growths but overall there's still a unity to the overall conception. But already I've introduced some ideas that are producing implications that are difficult to deal with. In particular I made the mistake of referring to W. D. Gaster and his CORE with its "magical electricity". I'd been trying hard to avoid the question of just what sort of "science" Alphys was actually practicing but then I made that question impossible to avoid because now, with an actual human scientist in the picture, handwaving and deliberate line-blurring between magic and science is no longer tenable.

Your writer,

Monophylos

30 September 2016


	17. Chapter 17

I made the crucial mistake when writing the eleventh chapter, "Mystic Rhythms". Now it seems as though even the questionable relevance of the title—I remember groping for something, anything better, then just went for the title of a Rush song because no inspiration came—to the little that happens in the chapter was a sign that I'd gone awry. The first ten chapters, though they had grown a bit beyond their original conception and picked up some unplanned thematic baggage, had still gone roughly according to the original plan. I'd set up Alphys and Undyne in her new lab, furnished them with a passable explanation of what they were doing, created a human scientist who seemed a plausible fit to the situation I was creating, and I'd put him through his job interview. Going over the story once more I have few quarrels still with the writing as far as Chapter 10.

In Chapter 11 I can sense myself asking "now what?" even as I was writing it. The premise that Alphys would direct her research into such a topic as energy self-sufficiency for the new monster settlement isn't, I don't think even now, an untenable one. But it does require the following two assumptions, rather large assumptions: first, that the Underground's apparently inexhaustible source of power, the CORE, was no longer operational or accessible; second, that Alphys couldn't just use whatever magitek they were using down Underground to build themselves a new power station analogous to the CORE.

I can tell you right away that I made the second assumption largely for my convenience. Partly I wanted to be writing something sciency because I know science, and writing about magic simply didn't interest me. Furthermore I'd conceived of Alphys as a scavenger, an improvisor, possessed of an uncanny ability to piece together scraps and fragments of knowledge and to build from scratch. It would have lessened her in my eyes if there was just some magic she could invoke. From this line of thought emerged another facet of my interpretation of Alphys and why she is what she is: I decided that she herself, unusually for a monster, had little to no native ability to use magic. Now there are parts of the game that indicate that Alphys may in fact have some kind of magical ability that we don't see her use directly. One of the shields that unexpectedly blocks Flowey's attacks in the final battle is a wall of lighting bolts, such as we've seen only Mettaton use so far, except Mettaton isn't present; Alphys speaks immediately afterward. Evidence Alphys possesses some kind of electrical magic that we otherwise don't see? I think that's rather a stretch. I think it's just as plausible to extrapolate that Alphys gave herself some kind of offensive capability with tech, the same tech that she builds into Mettaton EX, because she in fact can't perform magic.

I have a compelling reason for going with this reading: I feel it offers a concise and coherent explanation for both why Alphys has almost no self-esteem _and_ why she was so unusually fascinated with human society and technology. In my interpretation, Alphys does not consider herself a true monster because she can't do magic. I can even imagine this being a source of shame and ridicule in her childhood, of which we know less than for any other major monster character in the game. Did emotional abuse force her into a lifetime habit of self-hatred and hiding away from the world? It seems fitting. But then I imagine this very unhappy but exceptionally intelligent young monster starting to notice just what was washing down from the human world above into the Garbage Dump where it's clear she sought refuge from very early in life. I can imagine Alphys fascinated with what she found, for it would teach her that humans were capable with their technology of feats as marvellous as anything monsters could do with their magic. Her inventive little self would long to perform similar miracles, and thus Alphys's course in life was set: she would become a scientist and an engineer, but one whose specialty was human technology.

But then what do we make of the Underground's magitek? We can't pretend that they're just doing ordinary science and engineering down there, for Alphys explicitly says that the CORE is a geothermal plant for producing "magical electricity". And what are we to make of that? I certainly didn't know what to do with that scrap of information when it came to writing "Something a Little More Plain". I didn't feel comfortable with ignoring it and pretending that the CORE was just an ordinary geothermal generator making ordinary electricity, although in retrospect that seems like it would have been the wiser decision. Wouldn't they have gone on using such a convenient power station, one that practically seems to run itself? But the "victory lap" plainly indicates that the CORE is to be abandoned. I vaguely recall toying with the idea that one of the conditions the human authorities imposed on the monsters in exchange for permission to colonise Ebottsville was to shut the CORE down. So that might have been a good enough explanation for why, in my fiction anyway, the monsters are having to rebuild mostly from scratch.

(I just had the dark thought that the conditions might well be harsher: "We'll let you life on the surface but we are not tolerating the continued existence of vast underground structures full of possibly dangerous alien technology. We're relocating you to a reservation on the Surface. Be out of Mt. Ebott by a month before we send Army engineers into the Underground to dismantle it stone by stone." But I really didn't want to take my writing in that unfriendly a direction.)

But I gave into trying to acknowledge somehow that the CORE and the monsters' "electricity" was in fact magical. Why did I do that? For I can see now it was the decision that permanently derailed "Something a Little More Plain". I felt like maybe that if I didn't try to tackle that question I'd then have to deal with another, equally unanswerable question: how would a human scientist like Stephen Corey, a character who I'd already decided didn't have a spiritual or mystical bone in his body (in that, too, he's considerably different from me), deal with the monsters' ability to use magic? The first time he witnessed (say) Undyne creating a spear from thin air—and there wasn't anyway I wasn't going to prevent her from doing that—Stephen wouldn't be able to stop thinking and wondering and pestering the monsters about how the magic worked. So I felt that I had to find some way to account for magic in my version of the "Undertale" universe. Now, looking back on the results, I believe it would have been better for me simply to pretend that it wasn't an issue, even if it prompted questions about how a physical scientist could be so blasé about creatures who could summon objects from nothing. At its core (pun intended) "Something a Little More Plain" was intended to be a character-driven story about relationships and personality conflicts, and in bringing up the issue of magic I had departed too far from that central vision for my writing to recover from it.

Even so I still haven't quite let go the idea of trying to reconcile Stephen Corey's positivism and Undertale's magic. For one thing I liked the idea that Stephen was in the same position really as Alphys when it came to magic: incapable of it himself, yet unable to let go of his curiosity as to how it worked. I imagined that Stephen would stumble around, trying to experiment on magic and its use—just as Alphys would have done long ago when King Asgore gave her the task of finding a way past the Barrier. For now that mission, which would lead to such tragic consequences, would have this extra poignance: Alphys would, with her tremendous intelligence, be the only monster in the Underground with any hope of solving the problem—yet she herself would be almost as much of a stranger to magic as any human. I can imagine Alphys trying (not very directly of course) to steer Stephen's curiosity away from inquiring into magic for fear that he would accidentally discover the same dangerous stuff that she did: Determination. But even with these potential insights I haven't anything like a clear picture of how to rationalise Undertale magic, certainly not clear enough a picture to sustain a novel-length fanfic.

* * *

What's the future, then? In resolving to write this post-mortem of "Something a Little More Plain", my original intent wasn't to recycle much more of from this story beyond a few bits and pieces. One thing I'd like to work on eventually are a series of short, mostly light-hearted stories of what goes on at Alphys's new laboratory, for I'm taken with the idea of giving readers a taste of Alphys and Undyne at work together. I was also loosely committed to having Stephen and Evelyn appear, if only in a minor capacity. But now I'm inclined to think that I should preserve more.

As I said above, I think the first ten chapters are more or less sound. There are questionable bits, like the somewhat contrived appearances of Sans and Papyrus, although I can put up some defence for their inclusion. What's important though is that from the first ten chapters I can envision at least in outline the entirety of a complete tale: a story of how Alphys's continuing struggle with her behavioural problems and Undyne's growing dissatisfaction with her new social position put their young relationship in peril, but they win through to a strengthened companionship partly through the advice and experiences of two humans whose temperaments and personal difficulties somewhat resemble their own. _This_ , I daresay, is a story I still want to tell.

Therefore, while I am going to mark this story "closed", I am going to file it away not as abandoned for salvage but as the rough draft of a story that I will, eventually, redraft and complete. Maybe not very soon, for I have other Undertale writing obligations that come first. I desperately need to finish "Crouching Toriel, Hidden Cougar", for one thing. Also, while I have many stories about Alphys and Undyne that I'd like to tell, I have been given some reason to believe that the chief focus of my Undertale fiction should be on Chara and Asriel, whom I brought together again for "More than Kin, Less than Kind". Their relationship is, for me, the beating heart that gives "Undertale" its vitality and power, and I must soon return to it.

At any rate...thanks, all of you who've followed this, for taking an interest in my first stumbling attempts at writing an "Undertale" story, even though eventually it stumbled into a ditch and didn't come out again. I also hope that there's been at least some value in my self-analysis. I've never really done this for anything I've ever written before and I feel that it's been valuable to explain, as if to the audience of a class, just what about the story makes sense and what doesn't. Doing so hasn't _completely_ removed my sense of paralysis at being faced with unfinished work, but I do see a way forward again.

Your writer, under Her mercy,

Monophylos

3 October 2016


End file.
